


I. Decompression

by sanerontheinside



Series: Silent enim leges inter arma [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Eirtaé - Freeform, Finis Valorum - Freeform, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mace Windu is Doing His Best, Medical stuff, Original Character(s), Sabé - Freeform, Suspicious Politician is Suspicious, Teckla Minnau - Freeform, Yané - Freeform, bit parts for the Handmaidens, brief appearance by Darth Maul so y'all don't think death is a thing that's permanent, corde - Freeform, oh good lord SHEEV is in the TAG in the OFFICIAL TAG oh no, the frankenau
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-23 04:10:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13182093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanerontheinside/pseuds/sanerontheinside
Summary: A large enough shift in events, like exiting a shatterpoint, can sometimes result in a feeling that can only be described as rapid decompression. Symptoms may include: lightheadedness, dizziness, and occasionally a bit of confusion.





	1. Awake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a Temple Healer inexplicably appears on Naboo and refuses to explain themselves, bacta is something of a novelty, and Obi-Wan all but adopts his new brother-Padawan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jale Terza is flamethrower's OC, borrowed from ReEntry.  
> Also borrowed from RE is the idea that bacta was not yet available, as it does not make an appearance in any of the prequels.

_[10.52 hours, 18.11.5199]_

 

If it had been entirely up to Obi-Wan, he would not have left his Master’s side for a moment. On previous missions, local healers were either too intimidated by the Jedi to insist otherwise, or thought that Obi-Wan’s presence might help. It often did help, actually, beyond the sight of a familiar face when the worst was over: Obi-Wan kept his Master under, just as Qui-Gon did for him when the situation was reversed. Their ability to monitor each other was always a boon in war zones and impoverished districts. 

That was the first task Obi-Wan set for himself, once the bond reopened between them—frayed, strained, shivering, but enduringly unfurled. It allowed him to take stock of the damage, which he did almost automatically, and Obi-Wan did his best to stave off shock. 

He also noted, with clinical distance, that the pounding vibration of the generator slowly went dull and hollow and the lighting turned harsh. That promised a hell of a headache later. Theoretically. He’d never experienced psychic exhaustion before. _Should be interesting,_ he thought morbidly. 

But for now he had to stay alert long enough to keep Qui-Gon from going into shock. Obi-Wan still had no idea how to get them back to the hangar, or who would even think to come looking for them in the generator’s melting chamber; or, for that matter, how long it would take. 

Obi-Wan had _not_ expected to see Jale Terza standing over him in his final seconds of consciousness, wide-eyed and possibly yelling at him. He couldn’t hear a word, anyway. Couldn't process anything more than the thready pulse of the body in his arms and the ragged breathing that spoke of a damaged lung. Obi-Wan held on long enough to see Terza abruptly crouch down before him, and felt a brush of warmth under his hands. Once he was sure she could take over what he had been doing, he looked up again to check, saw her mouth the words ‘let go’, and gratefully did just that. 

Hours later he sluggishly drifted back to wakefulness, head pounding, mouth dry and full of cotton, skin hot and prickling. Wherever he was, it was not quiet—though the noises were indistinct, impossible to translate into any useful information. Obi-Wan tried to drag his eyes open, frustrated when that took entirely too much effort. He reconsidered quickly, however, when he finally opened them to brilliant, fiery white, and let out a pained curse. 

“Stop that,” someone said, entirely without force or venom. It sounded a bit like Terza, but very far away and possibly underwater. “Turn down the lights—no, all the way, yes, not enough but better. Can you do something about the window for now? Thank you.” 

There was a faint tap of steps coming closer, a rustle of robes, and light fingers rested on his hand for a moment. “Obi-Wan? You’re in shock. Your shields are mostly stable, but I can hear you swearing from across the ward. Can you hear me?” 

He thought about it for a moment. _Foggy,_ he decided. 

Terza made an odd sound that might have been an attempt to hold back a snort. “Foggy, hm? Let’s see what we can do about that.” 

Fingers brushed over his temples, warm with tingling Force energy that eased the headache and soothed the lingering pain in his eyes. The pounding pressure eased. “Well?” 

“Better,” Obi-Wan said, startled by the awful rasp that emerged. 

“Give it time.” He could hear the smile in Terza’s voice. “Another few hours, and it should clear completely.”

“Qui-Gon?” 

“Stable, and recovering. I'll tell you more—after you _rest._ ”

Something was missing. _The blockade? Battle?_

“The Naboo managed to take down the control ship. I'm told the droids were all deactivated with its destruction.”

Of course, that made sense. How else would Terza be here? 

Obi-Wan frowned. _How long—?_

“About eight hours, and not long enough. I'll explain later, Obi-Wan, now _sleep._ ”

He nearly lost the last words under the powerful Force Suggestion, and decided he would complain about that later. 

 

* * *

 

 

_[20.23 hours, 18.11.5199]_

 

The next time Obi-Wan blinked his eyes open to light that was not quite as painful, and the sense of a Healer sitting at his bedside and glowering at him. 

Obi-Wan let that pass for now and gently felt along his bond for his Master’s condition. Qui-Gon’s presence was a subdued warmth on the other end of the bond, deep in drugged sleep. Obi-Wan didn’t think they’d gotten the chance for a proper rest in the last several months. Bed rest wasn’t anyone’s favourite way of catching up on sleep, but hells, there was no denying that they’d needed it. At least partly reassured, Obi-Wan turned his attention back to the Healer. 

“Terza,” he said, his voice emerging as a harsh and quiet rasp. The Healer’s glower softened to a sympathetic look as she rose and reached to adjust the pillows behind him, helping him shift to a sitting position. Obi-Wan felt like he'd been hit by a starfighter, and parts of him—his back, his jaw—maybe a couple more times after that, just to make sure. Terza passed him a glass of water, which Obi-Wan took gratefully, and sat back. 

“Qui-Gon?” 

“Well, he’s going to enjoy physical therapy,” she said wryly. “No fieldwork for at least six months, and light missions even then, though that’s something you two always manage to avoid.” 

Obi-Wan huffed. “We don’t actually try to get ourselves into trouble, Terza.”

“I won’t comment on how hard you try to stay out of it,” she retorted. “So you’ll have a Healer-mandated six-month reprieve. You’re certainly due for one.” 

“Six months.” Obi-Wan tipped his head, thoughtful. “That doesn’t sound good.” 

He was still trying to process the idea that he’d almost lost his Master. There was a kind of unreality to it, cotton-wrapped and distant. Terza’s estimate wasn’t helping—what he’d seen, what he’d spent the last of his conscious moments holding together by force of will alone, might have put Qui-Gon on the permanently disabled list along with Micah. Or worse. 

“You mean you thought it would be worse, with the injury you saw.” Terza sighed and sat back. “I received a very interesting sample before I left Coruscant, and fortunately the presence of mind to take it with me. Something called ‘bacta’. It’s proved potent and very effective, but there will be additional tests and treatments when we get back to the Temple.” 

“And when did you leave Coruscant?” That was one thing that still bothered him. “You made it past the blockade?”

“Actually—” Terza shifted, crossed her ankles and leaned back. “We were here before the blockade.” 

Obi-Wan blinked once. 

“Ostensibly, we are here to research Gungan physiology. We had some difficulties last cycle, when a Master-Padawan pair picked up a particularly virulent viral strain. They’ve recovered, but we’d rather not risk an ineffective vaccine again.” 

His head still hurt too much to risk any particularly wild expressions, so Obi-Wan reserved the arched eyebrow for another time. “Reasonable,” he offered dubiously instead. 

“The Naboo have been released from the camps,” Terza continued. “They’ve taken back the city—that could have been a great deal bloodier, if they hadn’t destroyed the Federation control ship.” 

Her voice went a little sharper at that last, and Obi-Wan glanced up. “The fighter pilots were successful, then,” he murmured, setting the glass down on the bedside table. 

Terza glared at him, unimpressed. “They’re hailing that boy as a brave hero of Naboo for making the shot that broke the blockade.” 

“Oh.” Obi-Wan examined that sentence for a long moment, frowning. It seemed like he’d missed a crucial bit of information somewhere, though for the life of him he couldn’t think where. He settled on, “What boy?”

“Skywalker.” There was no mistaking the hard edge in that voice.

“Oh. Qui-Gon told him to stay out of trouble.” 

“Destroying a control ship seems to be a very loose interpretation of that instruction, don’t you think?”

Obi-Wan, recalling some of his own ‘loose’ interpretations of his Master’s instructions, spared a moment’s horror for the thought of what kind of trouble Anakin's potential might lead to.  

He shrugged. “We were being shot at. Anakin was in one of the fighter cockpits, with Artoo. It had shields. Seemed the best option. No one expected him to fly it.” 

“Apparently it was on autopilot.” Terza chuckled ruefully and collapsed back in her chair again. “Whoever ends up that boy’s Master is going to have a lot of these lucky accidents on their hands, I’m sure. I just hope they outweigh the inevitable Padawan disasters.” 

Obi-Wan shook his head, frowning at his hands. “The Council won’t accept him for training.”

“What do you mean they won’t?” 

The Healer’s sharp question caught him entirely by surprise, and Obi-Wan glanced up, unblinking. “The Council has decided that Anakin Skywalker will not be trained. My Master offered to take him as his Padawan and recommended me for the trials.” 

Terza subjected him to a narrow-eyed glare. “The Council refused to train a child with a midichlorian count of over twenty thousand? Remind me to have them all tested for spice.” 

Obi-Wan snorted. “Perhaps after this they might reconsider their decision.”

“I hope so.” Terza seemed troubled, dark eyebrows knit thoughtfully. “Whatever it is you two faced in the melting room, I’ve never felt anything like that. Dark, and cold… the very idea of _that_ being anywhere near an untrained child—” Terza shuddered, then visibly put the thought aside. 

Obi-Wan sat up a little bit straighter, as well. “Where is Anakin now?” 

“He’s been staying with the Queen’s Handmaidens. They’re all rather fond of him already, and were kind enough to rescue him from the second round of booster shots. They are also under orders to feed that child, and _soak_ him in water if possible.” 

“Ah.” Obi-Wan pushed himself up, only to find an iron grasp on his shoulder and a hawkish Healer glare angled down at him. 

“And where do you think you’re going, Padawan Kenobi?” 

“To relieve the Queen’s Handmaidens?” he offered innocently. 

“Prove that you can stand, first. _Unassisted._ ”

He shot her an offended look, but complied all the same. Aside from a brief rush of vertigo, he acquitted himself quite well. 

Terza pressed her lips into a thin line, then nodded once sharply. “All right. I still don’t want to let you out on your own, but you’ll be free of me tomorrow. And you’ll be sleeping that dizziness off somewhere I can monitor you, that is completely non-negotiable. I can ask someone to bring Anakin here. Show that boy how to meditate, if you think you’re up to it, and maybe try to put yourself in a healing trance for the night, but don’t push it.” 

Obi-Wan sat down on the edge of the bed with a sigh. “At least tell me where my Master is, then.” 

Terza waved vaguely over her shoulder. “I’m keeping him under for another six hours at least.” 

“That’s all right, Terza.” Obi-Wan swallowed painfully. “He’ll want to know where his Padawan is.” 

He didn’t notice the odd look the Healer gave him at that, but she shrugged amiably and threw up her hands. “Why is it that my favourite patients are always my worst patients?” she muttered, and rose decisively. “Wait here a moment.” 

It was late evening, a fire-red glow seeping through the glass at low angles. It still felt warm. Obi-Wan cast a look about the makeshift ward—a hall in the palace, dressed in sterile cloths and lined with makeshift beds for a field clinic. He knew of the field hospitals set up on the outskirts of Theed, mostly for those freed from the camps. This was for the people injured while retaking the city. It hadn’t been easy, Obi-Wan thought, frowning. There were many people here. 

There could have been so many more. 

The very idea of a nine-year-old boy taking control of a starfighter and destroying the Trade Federation’s control ship was wandering around in his mind, finding no place to put itself. Theoretically, Obi-Wan knew about a Tatooine pod race and that Anakin had won it, and that Qui-Gon had somehow been desperate enough to allow Anakin to make the attempt. Those facts had also found no real frame of reference for Obi-Wan to understand them. He hadn’t been there to see it; and Qui-Gon was rarely desperate. 

He'd seen pod races, though, and even wondered briefly what it would be like to participate. Qui-Gon had taken one look at his apprentice, given him a stern glare for the thought—and then introduced him to swoop racing on Corellia. Not quite as mad as pod racing, nor as dangerous (meaning he wasn't as likely to get stabbed in the back for 'cheating', which is to say, for having Force-honed reflexes), but a good place to start getting used to the idea of speed and eyes-on-the-handlebars terror. 

So that was half a frame, a shadow of context on which Obi-Wan could have mapped the truth of the Boonta Eve victory. To take a starfighter out into a dogfight and do what no other Naboo pilot had done—no. That was far more than a step above in difficulty. Obi-Wan’s mind chittered at the merest suggestion of a comparison. 

In the aftermath, at least, Obi-Wan could appreciate how completely ridiculous it was for the Council to refuse to train Anakin. In truth, he should have seen that much sooner. The boy Obi-Wan had met on the Queen’s transport was a mass of contradictions. He’d been faced with a child blazing with potential; potential that burned so bright, it carved shadows longer and deeper than any Obi-Wan had ever seen, and his prescience had flared in reaction. It had been maddeningly difficult to see through Force-borne whispers of possible futures to the boy who carried them, and he’d easily understood the Council’s reservations. 

But it had taken him too long to realise that the Council meeting had thoroughly terrified Anakin. Obi-Wan almost wanted to kick himself for that, remembering what it had been like to face them as an Initiate. Worse, he’d gone and agreed with them, argued with Qui-Gon—over what? Over something he knew to be an absurd decision—now, when he could finally breathe without feeling like the world was about to crash around his ears. 

_Focus on the Moment,_ Qui-Gon had told him, again and again, all throughout his apprenticeship. How, how had he let himself become so blinded to the present? 

_So had Qui-Gon,_ his mind whispered to him. That was a startling, confusing thought. Obi-Wan put it aside for later, to examine in his meditation. He had a feeling it would be hours before he could come to terms with all his own failures. 

Obi-Wan usually regretted his prescience, anyway. Sometimes he despaired of ever having control enough not to be constantly apologising for it. Close on the heels of his argument with Qui-Gon and his Master's sharp dismissal, Obi-Wan realised that Anakin had overheard it; then, with a sharp, mortified pang, realised just how deeply he must have hurt the boy. Anakin had taken Obi-Wan’s apology far better than he had any right to expect or hope for, but the fact that Anakin seemed familiar with prescient dreams only worried him more. 

_Don’t center on your anxieties, Padawan,_ he thought, and smiled wryly. 

He didn’t know how long he’d sat there on the edge of his cot. He'd managed to force back his awareness of the headache, at least, to something he could ignore, though his mind continued to meander around in fuzzy circles. Perhaps not long: Terza reappeared, accompanied by Sabé and Anakin. Obi-Wan noted Captain Panaka hanging back at the entrance to the makeshift ward, and momentarily pictured the boy trotting behind him. He mustered a tired, but genuine grin at the image, and stretched out a hand to the youngling. 

“Hello, Anakin.” Obi-Wan nearly winced at the still raw quality of his own voice. 

Anakin frowned up at him. “They said you were going to be okay,” he said. There was accusation in his voice, as if Obi-Wan had fallen short of full recovery on purpose. 

Obi-Wan bit back an amused grin. He wanted to reassure the boy, wanted to tell him everything would be all right, but stalled out just as he took a breath to speak. 

What could he say, really, that wasn't a lie? Hours ago he'd stared Darkness in the face, almost certain he wouldn't survive it. He'd nearly lost Qui-Gon to a monster the Council had pronounced ‘extinct for a millennium’—and to Qui-Gon’s own folly. He was as far from ‘okay’ as he could imagine being. 

But Qui-Gon had survived, and he'd sliced that— _thing_ —in half. 

“I will be,” Obi-Wan said at last, smiling. He suspected his expression must have been strained at best. 

Anakin’s suspicious squint only seemed to confirm it, but his next question surprised Obi-Wan. “What will happen to me now?”

“Qui-Gon will train you,” Obi-Wan said. _If he heals from this._

Anakin bit his lip, nervous. “But, sir, the Council—”

Obi-Wan smiled gently. “Anakin, when there is something Qui-Gon Jinn resolves to do, there is no stopping him.” 

Though what form his defiance could possibly take in this case, Obi-Wan didn’t know. He would never put it past Qui-Gon Jinn to find a way. Maybe he’d send Anakin to one of the satellite Temples—Corellia, perhaps. Something in the Force disagreed with that thought, though, insisted Anakin was meant to be _here._ Obi-Wan had spoken truly, but as it often happened, the _how_ was clouded in the Force. 

Anakin didn’t seem entirely convinced by Obi-Wan’s assertion, either, and Obi-Wan couldn’t blame him for it. 

“Do you promise?” Anakin asked. 

Obi-Wan eyed him thoughtfully. Truly, could he make such a promise? 

But how could he not? Without the swirl of whatever crisis the Force was desperately trying to show him, Obi-Wan found himself looking at a nine-year-old boy. A boy, recently bought out of slavery, taken away from the only home he’d ever known—from his mother on Tatooine. He looked cold and lost and very afraid, and his fate had been placed in the hands of twelve people who had made little effort to see past the Force-sense of him. 

_To hells with them,_ Obi-Wan thought, rather to his own surprise, but when he spoke, the words felt true. “I will help in any way I can, Anakin. I promise you, you will not be abandoned.” 

Anakin seemed to study him for a few seconds, doubtful, searching the Force for truth, then gave him a quick, jerky nod. Obi-Wan caught a glimpse of an aborted movement, as if Anakin had wanted to reach for him. He opened his arms in invitation and immediately found himself sitting with an armful of shivering future brother-Padawan. 

Obi-Wan held him close for a long moment, pulling the thin medical-issue blanket off his cot and wrapping it around Anakin’s shoulders, rubbing the boy’s back. Long minutes after the shivers had mostly stopped, Obi-Wan looked up and caught sight of Terza standing just out of the way, looking on approvingly. At the unvoiced question in her gaze, he nodded gingerly and looked down at Anakin. 

“Should we see Qui-Gon, do you think?” Anakin nodded against his chest. “All right.” 

Terza beckoned them with a slight curl of her hand, and walked them further down the hall to a room with dimmed lights and heavily curtained windows. There was a strange smell heavy on the air, sweet and almost cloying, and yet not entirely unpleasant. It wasn’t the worst of the barrage of medicinal, sterilising agents he’d encountered, both in the Temple and in various med centers throughout the galaxy. 

Unusual, though. He cast a look at Terza, who pursed her lips and gave an infinitesimal shake of her head. Obi-Wan decided it probably meant _later,_ and said nothing. 

Qui-Gon looked far too pale, drawn and exhausted even in sleep. Obi-Wan couldn’t quite keep his eyes from wandering down to his master's chest, but the wound was obscured by bandages. It was almost enough to convince him, at least for a moment, that the wound had not been nearly as severe as he remembered. 

Terza was looking at him with some concern, lips pursed in the standard assessing Healer expression he’d come to know so well. “He’ll be unconscious for the next few hours—hopefully until tomorrow morning. He’s already broken sedation once or twice. I’ll need to find someone to monitor his sleep, to make sure he doesn’t wake until then—” 

Obi-Wan nodded firmly. “I’ll do it.” 

The Healer levelled a glare at him that might’ve been intimidating at any other time. “Did I not just moments ago tell you that you needed a healing trance?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan agreed. “ _Before_ you mentioned Qui-Gon breaking sedation. That’s not exactly normal, is it?”

Terza huffed. “No, generally _you’re_ my complicated patient.”

“Nothing he might be allergic to? No drug interactions?” Obi-Wan pressed. 

“No, nothing. I’ve checked at least three times.” 

Obi-Wan arched an eyebrow, though his head ached for it. “Do you have any idea what else it could be?”

“Maybe…” Her brow furrowed. “I don’t know what it was you fought, Obi-Wan, but I think… there may have been—some interference with Qui-Gon’s shields. There is no obvious damage, I checked, no sign of psychic injury, but I think he might be falling into unpleasant dreams.” 

“And if they are bad enough wake him in spite of the sedatives, that bears watching,” Obi-Wan nodded firmly. “Who better to know Qui-Gon’s shields than his Padawan?” 

It was probably a selfish request. But at the moment, Obi-Wan didn't care. 

Terza shot him a narrow-eyed glare, then sighed, giving in. Perhaps she’d caught the tenor of his thoughts—Obi-Wan was almost certain his shields were barely doing half the job. 

“You did say he’d want to know where his Padawan was. He asked for you, he was convinced you were dead. And that is the only reason you’re winning this argument, Padawan Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan swallowed thickly. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Anakin, briefly forgotten, was looking up at them both with a wide-eyed, frightened expression. “Is he going to be all right?”

Terza smiled gently. “Given time, he will be, young one. For now, he needs rest and patience. There’s a cot for you, here—” 

She dipped down and pulled a cot over from where it had been folded up against the wall, and between the two of them, she and Obi-Wan wrestled it into unfolding. It would serve, and wasn’t the least uncomfortable surface Obi-Wan had ever slept on. Anakin had looked at him for permission, and Obi-Wan waved him down approvingly, certain the boy must have been far more tired than he was willing to let on. He followed the preoccupied Healer to the door, and saw her out as she absently pushed past it with a concerned glance back at her sleeping patient and not a word more. 

Obi-Wan sighed, slowly crossed back to the cot, and sat down beside Anakin. Anakin’s presence felt like a knot of exhaustion and worry in his mind, and gave the impression of a painful, blistering heat against Obi-Wan's strained shields. The pounding headache he'd been studiously ignoring ramped up again, and as Obi-Wan's jaw began to ache in sympathy, he made a half-serious note to avoid psychic exhaustion in the future. 

Anakin shivered at his side, drawing Obi-Wan's attention back to him. Obi-Wan couldn’t help but put an arm around the boy's shoulders and draw him into a loose embrace. Something about that must have been reassuring, because the jangling emotions Anakin had been broadcasting eased just a bit. Instead, Obi-Wan was hit with an almost overwhelming exhaustion at the contact, and smiled. 

“Too wound up to rest?” he asked softly. 

Anakin turned wide eyes up towards him, jaw clenched, and nodded. 

Obi-Wan hummed. “Ever tried to meditate?” 

At Anakin’s puzzled glance, he knew he had his answer. 

“We’ll do that later. For now, I’ll tell you the basics. Most people without access to the Force have a period of time set aside for their minds to sort the information they’ve collected over the entire day and make sense of it. That’s why sleep is important. But the Force gives us much more information than we collect from our senses alone. You accidentally pick up on what others are feeling sometimes, yes?”

Anakin frowned slightly. “I thought people didn’t like it when you pick up on their feelings.”

“No, not really,” Obi-Wan agreed with a tired grin. “But we can’t always control it. And sometimes, it can affect how you feel. That’s why we teach younglings to sort through their feelings as early as possible.” 

Anakin’s frown didn’t quite lift. “Is that why the Council said I was too old to train?” 

_Yes and no,_ Obi-Wan thought, a touch bitterly. “One of the reasons, yes. You’ve probably found your own methods to handle that extra information.” 

“Mom used to talk to me about it,” Anakin said, brightening. “If I felt bad, but I didn’t know why, she used to ask me things.” 

Obi-Wan felt a cold prickling over the back of his neck, and ruthlessly kept himself back from a feeling of intense dismay. No one in the Temple would ever take Shmi’s place in this, he knew. He would have to talk to Qui-Gon, they’d need to find some way to buy her freedom—and Obi-Wan knew the Council wouldn’t approve. Watto would likely ask a high price for his last remaining slave. 

But until they could secure Shmi’s freedom? A Mind Healer might approach that kind of skill, but gods knew, Obi-Wan wasn’t sure any of the Coruscanti Healers had been outside the Core long enough to have any experience dealing with repatriation of slaves. Perhaps a non-Jedi Healer on Alderaan… Obi-Wan thought he’d heard something about House Organa sponsoring freed slaves, but he was too tired to remember the details now. 

He pulled his attention back to the present. “I’m sorry, I needed a moment to think,” he murmured. “That’s a very good method. Jedi teach essentially the same, but instead you ask yourself those questions.” Anakin gave him a very sour look at that, and Obi-Wan had to chuckle softly. “No one is going to ask you to do everything all at once, Ani.”

Something in Anakin’s Force presence warmed—either at the light teasing or at the endearment, Obi-Wan didn’t know, but the ever-present weight of exhaustion eased back a little. 

“So meditating is like talking to yourself?”

Obi-Wan snickered. “A little. Many people meditate, not just Jedi. It’s also supposed to help you relax.”

He nearly laughed outright at Anakin’s dubious look. 

Many meditations started with music as a focus—especially for the youngest in the créche, who had difficulty keeping still without some sort of external focus—but Obi-Wan thought that at least for tonight, they could start with breathing exercises and a few stretches. He would have to find music later. In any case, the moment they’d run through the stretches and Anakin settled into the breathing pattern as Obi-Wan had shown him, Anakin fell asleep almost instantly. Obi-Wan smiled fondly and tucked him in, then noticed his robe on the seat by the wall, and decided to wrap the boy in that as well. 

Afterwards, he perched on the edge of the cot again and set part of his mind to monitor his Master’s condition, the rest of him sinking into a half-trance—not quite the healing trance Terza had insisted on earlier, but, he hoped, it would be enough. 

 

* * *

 

 

_[01.46 hours, 19.11.5199]_

 

Obi-Wan’s eyes opened to pitch blackness and silence. For a moment he simply lay there willing his racing heart to calm, and wondering what had startled him. 

The Force felt stifled, the silence far too empty to be real. Anakin was curled up in a tight ball beside him. The room was neither hot nor cold, and Naboo’s clear night air drifted in gently through a partly-open window. The dissonance between physical reality and what Obi-Wan’s Force sense was telling him—screaming at him—was jarring. 

Obi-Wan reached for the training bond to gauge his Master’s condition and found—nothing. He argued with himself: that was impossible; it was there hours ago, after the fight—Obi-Wan remembered that. He remembered the proud warmth that had reached for him, the vast sense of Qui-Gon’s relief and joy in the knowledge that Obi-Wan was with him, alive and unharmed. Obi-Wan hadn’t had the time to parse those emotions then, but now finding the cold lack of anything at all in their place shocked him. 

He forced himself to stop, to breathe and center, them reached for that connection again. In its place he found an inky drop into a bottomless void, slippery and sucking at him like a gravity well. There: that was the empty silence. Qui-Gon was so tightly shielded that Obi-Wan almost couldn’t sense him. 

It was as though Qui-Gon had gone so deep within himself and his own pain that he’d lost himself there, and forgotten how to find his way back out. Too much, it was too much a reminder of Xanatos’ death on Telos, too much like Master Tahl’s near-death only a few years ago. 

Obi-Wan panicked. He launched himself up from the borrowed cot, somehow staggering out of the tangle of a thin medical-issue blanket to his Master’s bedside to grasp his hand. 

It wasn’t enough. If anything, it sent Qui-Gon into a blind panic and had him trying to throw the hold off, though he shouldn’t have been able to move, not with that injury. Obi-Wan reached for him, tried to reassure his Master with mental touch that he wasn’t alone, and was swept under smothering waves of breathless terror and black, roiling despair—completely losing his ground in the moment. 

 

_He found himself yet again in the black and brushed durasteel halls of the Theed generator complex, heart pounding, ray shield slammed shut before him. Only, this time, he was watching a different fight altogether. Obi-Wan saw himself, bright fire dancing just out of the Zabrak’s reach. He could not see his Master’s body. If nothing else, that prompted the distant, paralysed realisation that this was probably a dream. Not his dream, either._

_That didn't help his composure though, as he looked back to the duelling pair. His double was struggling, evidently. Oh, he still held his own, but his exhaustion was evident. And it seemed to Obi-Wan that his counterpart knew it._

_Knew it, and tried to use it._

_It should have worked. Under other circumstances, that feint should have been enough. But his exhaustion claimed him instead, and the blow, while still deadly, wasn't fast enough, wasn't powerful enough, to disable the Zabrak where he stood. No—instead Obi-Wan had the uncanny experience of watching himself die._

_He was startled by the sound of a scream—a broken, heart-rending roar. A sound he’d never thought could come from his Master, who he now realised had been standing right beside him all this time._

 

_Fuck, nightmares—_

Obi-Wan wrenched himself free of the vision, coming back to the sound of screaming heart rate and respiration monitors that had inadvertently woken Anakin. Obi-Wan felt a small warm hand slip into his, felt a sudden flare in the Force as Anakin tried to offer what little support he could. 

Force bless the boy, even that little was nearly overwhelming, to the extent that Obi-Wan had to refocus his efforts to controlling the sudden flood. Anakin probably didn’t even realise how much he’d been able to give with one small, sympathetic impulse. 

It took more than a little coaxing to pull Qui-Gon back through layers of pained disbelief and the conviction that he'd somehow failed his Padawan and watched him die. With Anakin’s help, the soothing mental touch was eventually enough to bring Qui-Gon’s heart rate down, but the rest was rather more difficult. The tenor of the sleeping Master’s thoughts turned very slowly away from despair and into something wistful, shields gradually weakening and fading back to normal. With that Obi-Wan’s mind-touch returned stronger, easing even that remaining grief. 

_Nothing lost, nothing broken, Master. I’m still here._

A few moments more, and Qui-Gon stirred, a strangled sound escaping him. Obi-Wan’s grip on his hand tightened as he slowly regained consciousness. Anakin darted aside, almost immediately reappearing at Obi-Wan’s elbow with a glass of ice chips. 

Obi-Wan nodded approvingly and carefully rearranged the pillow to prop Qui-Gon up just a bit, mindful of the wound. An ice-chip or two later, some of the stress lines on Qui-Gon’s face eased. 

“Might stay awake this time,” he rasped. Breathing still hurt him, clearly. His voice was utterly wrecked. 

“Shh,” Obi-Wan whispered. “It’s the middle of the night, Master.” 

“Is it.” He frowned at the ceiling. “Obi-Wan?” 

His Padawan leaned in closer. “What is it?”

“Tell Terza—” he stopped to gratefully accept another ice chip, “tell her—to stop drugging me.” 

Obi-Wan laughed softly. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.” 

Qui-Gon looked confused for a moment. “Was it that bad?” 

Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut and tightened his grip on his Master’s hand. “Yes,” he said. 

“Oh, Padawan,” Qui-Gon whispered, sounding heartbroken. The hand Obi-Wan held twitched, and he forced himself to loosen his fingers lest he break his Master’s in his grief. But when that hand shakily, slowly came up to touch his cheek and tug gently at his Padawan braid, Obi-Wan almost broke again. 

“Sleep, Master,” he choked out, “I’ll guard your dreams this night.”

Given how quickly Qui-Gon’s breathing settled again, Obi-Wan suspected he wouldn’t remember any of this conversation. Maybe asking Terza about the drugs wouldn’t hurt—but he would consider that in a few hours, Obi-Wan decided. Now was most definitely too soon. 

He noticed Anakin had pulled the cot they’d been sharing even closer to the medical bed, and smiled. “Thank you, Ani,” he said softly. “Let’s try to get some sleep.”

He sank into their training bond, intent upon keeping watch over his Master’s dreams, but in the end fell asleep in moments. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Legends currently claims that bacta was available at all times in canon, and there even was a conflict over shipping routes during Obi-Wan's years as a Padawan—the Stark Hyperspace War. Interestingly, I'm fairly certain that I read a completely different description/summary of the Stark Hyperspace War that had nothing whatsoever to do with bacta shipping just before all the wookiepedia entries changed to reflect the New Leadership. 
> 
> Well, bugger all that, anyway.


	2. Meditations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning throws light into many cracks, though some are too deep to venture into yet.

Obi-Wan awoke at dawn, and for a long moment couldn’t fathom where he was. There was a small form curled against his chest, and the room was filled with brilliant light and silence. For once, Obi-Wan thought he might indulge his aching muscles and just lie there for a few minutes—ten minutes, perhaps, if he could stand to stay still that long. It wasn’t as though he had anywhere to be, any mission to attend to. He felt curiously light, and the sensation not entirely pleasant—dizzying, like after an abrupt release of pressure. 

Qui-Gon’s end of their training bond was also quiet, with a feeling of exhausted half-wakefulness that Obi-Wan found a touch concerning. Qui-Gon seemed too tired for true rest, too tired to process anything, and yet somehow aware of his surroundings. Terza had been wary of putting him under with a Force suggestion, out of a suspicion that his shields had been affected or compromised. Obi-Wan soon discovered the feedback through the bond would not let him rest. It was too much like sleep paralysis, tense and nervous and not quite fearful. 

With a huff, Obi-Wan slowly began to untangle himself from cloak and blanket, careful not to wake the boy. It was a lengthy process. His limbs felt leaden and his head too light, and when he finally shuffled across the room from the cot to the chair, he felt as though he’d come down from a high fever in the night. 

Obi-Wan sat down to rest there a moment, then propped himself up against the back and moved it, as quietly and carefully as possible, to his Master’s bedside. At least he already felt better. The moment he reached out and took his Master’s hand, the nervous thrum in their bond faded into the background, and that was its own reward. 

Some time later Terza appeared, soft footsteps carrying her halfway across the room before Obi-Wan noticed. He stiffened, not recognising her silhouette against the light at first. 

“Good morning, Obi-Wan,” she murmured, making her way to the other side of Qui-Gon’s bed. 

“Mornin’,” he mumbled back, wincing at the soft, rasping sound of his voice. 

She threw a quick, keen glance at him. “At least you slept. That’s better than I’d expected of you, given your Master’s habits.” 

Obi-Wan grimaced. “He would’ve fought you ’til you drugged him, yes. That doesn’t explain why he’s half-awake now, though.” 

Terza’s lips thinned into a fine line. “No. Tell me, Obi-Wan, when you faced that Darksider in the generator plant, did you feel anything trying to get through your shields?”

He felt his expression twist before he could stop himself, then gave up caring much about it and sighed, pushing himself up to his feet. “Everything was Dark. I don’t know, maybe his focus was on my Master and not me.” 

Terza tilted her head to one side, assessing gaze directed at Qui-Gon’s drawn and pale expression. “That may be. He needs rest, or his recovery won’t progress as well or as quickly as it should. He’ll need additional bacta treatments in a few days—perhaps in a ten, though the timing is flexible. I want him able to sit up, at least, before we try that again.” 

Obi-Wan found himself nodding along absently. "Why another tenday?"

Terza wrinkled her nose. "I'll be honest, I'm not sure at all about the timeframe. Normally, it takes about a tenth and a half for the body's chronic inflammatory response to set in. I'm still uncertain of how bacta interacts with the immune system precisely, so I have no idea if the wound will heal faster, or better. All I know is, bacta should help mitigate that inflammation, and I would like to put him through another treatment when that happens."

Obi-Wan took a moment to think about that twice, just to be sure he hadn't missed any crucial details. “All right. I suspect we will be staying here for a few more days. Is that enough time?” 

Terza shrugged. “Another four days back to Coruscant, and a few days here? For the time being, bacta can be applied topically just as well, but it’s far more effective as a submersion treatment in a tank.” 

Obi-Wan stared. “The Naboo had access to that?” 

“No, actually,” she chuckled faintly. “They barely had facilities to hold it for us, we had to improvise when we first got here to set it up, but the delivery had already been made.” 

“Ah. Same reason you were here before the blockade,” Obi-Wan surmised. “Someone’s prescience?” 

Terza eyed him sharply. “Why, has yours troubled you recently?” 

Obi-Wan couldn’t quite hold back a bitter scoff. “Define ‘recently’.” 

“I see. Well, you’re not the only one. This entire happenstance was built on the Vision of one former Councilor and one Knight,” Terza said. “It’s been an interesting month.” 

He frowned. “There can’t be that many in the Order with a tendency to foresight, can there? I haven’t met them.” 

“It’s not the sort of thing people often mention in polite conversation, sometimes not even to their Healer,” Terza pointed out. “People seem to think that just because their foresight or 'feeling' is not accompanied by physical symptoms, it isn't a potential health issue. Personally, I’d much rather know about something like that. Especially if it’s causing you trouble sleeping.” 

That last sounded a little like reproof, but Obi-Wan shrugged it off casually. “It happens in predictable cycles, Terza. Qui-Gon and I have—arrangements for that sort of thing.” 

“Mhm…” She trailed off, feigning greater interest in something on her datapad, perhaps to encourage Obi-Wan to tell her more. When he said nothing, she sighed. “Was it early this time?” 

Obi-Wan glanced up, staring past her and out the window, frowning in thought. “Maybe a little. It usually doesn’t fall out of cycle, but this time—maybe by a half-ten. Were there others?” 

Terza narrowed her eyes just a touch, almost visibly filing through her memory. “One person reported their visions became more frequent and more—insistent, they said, to the point of blocking out reality and not allowing them to sleep. The Knight who sent the bacta shipment—I can’t speak for them, because I haven’t seen them since clearing them for duty. Which is a shame, they’re much better at keeping track of these things than most of my patients. To my knowledge, they’ve rarely had overwhelming visual or auditory sensation accompanying prompts from the Force. They sent me a transmission some days ago reporting the change. The same for several Knights and Padawans with absolutely no prior experience with Visions, who reported the change to me within the last month.” 

Obi-Wan mulled that over. “Now that is odd, isn’t it,” he mused. 

“Very,” the Healer confirmed. “Very odd. I wonder if it’s a permanent change. Though,” Terza looked at Qui-Gon again, “if it saves more lives in the field, I will be extremely well pleased.” 

“Preferably not under these conditions,” Obi-Wan muttered. 

“Too right. Obi-Wan, as to Qui-Gon’s condition at the present...”

Obi-Wan straightened and looked up at the Healer. “Yes?” 

“I am hesitant to attempt a Force suggestion still, when I don’t know what damage might have been done to his shields, if any. I can change the sedative in a few hours.” 

Obi-Wan nodded. “I think Qui-Gon would agree to that, but I haven’t the faintest idea how to ask him, as he is now.” 

Terza reached for his elbow and squeezed sympathetically. “Understood, but you’re the only person who can speak for him at this moment.” 

Obi-Wan bowed slightly. “Then, I think it’s worth a try.” 

Terza nodded and stepped out of the room, leaving Obi-Wan to stare at his Master’s still form. With Anakin still asleep, there wasn’t much for him to do but fret—or meditate. Yes, meditation was the better option. There was much for him to ponder. 

 

* * *

 

His meditations were uneasy. 

The swirl of confusion that greeted him was far more vast than he’d dealt with in a long time. This mission had inspired a knotted mess of anger, hurt feelings, and complete bafflement. Obi-Wan wasn’t even certain who had inspired the most of it—had that been Qui-Gon, or the Council? 

_Begin at the beginning,_ Obi-Wan thought, and frowned. He couldn’t pin down what the beginning was. Frustration, he had plenty of, most of it aimed at himself. He chafed at his inability to separate the whispering hints of prescience from the Moment, particularly in this latest instance: he had been unable to separate nebulous potentiality from the figure of a youngling, and had judged Anakin by what might never be.  He could not control the effect these Visions had on his reaction to other people, and that was a danger. 

Not for the first time, Obi-Wan wanted to speak to someone, someone who might reassure and advise him on the matter. His Master was not gifted in Sight, it was true, but sometimes—almost paradoxically—Qui-Gon’s insistence that he focus on the Moment had helped more than Master Yoda ever could. _Always in motion, the future is,_ Yoda would say, his message much the same as Qui-Gon’s in the end—but neither could counsel him in _control._ His conversation with Terza only moments ago had highlighted the same truth for him: there were prescient Jedi in the Order; there were perhaps a handful who experienced Visions, even with regularity, but he did not know them. In fact, Obi-Wan remembered but one other Jedi with abilities similar to his own. She had been a Senior Padawan several years above him when he first met her. To his knowledge, she had not returned to Coruscant in nearly a decade. 

But what of that stray thought he’d had last night? That Qui-Gon, too, had lost his vaunted focus on the Moment? 

From the moment the Chancellor had contacted them for a private meeting, and asked them to take this assignment as a personal favour, Obi-Wan had had a ‘bad feeling’ about it. Qui-Gon might have instructed him not to focus on his anxieties, but after years of partnership Obi-Wan didn’t need to see past his shields to know when his Master was on high alert. 

It occurred to Obi-Wan now that he’d long since stopped interpreting shades and impressions of his Master’s feelings through the bond as separate from himself. It was a matter of adapting to their partnership: if his Master sensed danger, Obi-Wan prepared for it. If his Master was seized with a feeling of urgency, Obi-Wan adjusted to keep up. That was the prize of Master Jinn’s many years of field experience—Qui-Gon sensed trouble long before it happened, prepared for it before he truly knew he was doing so. As a general rule, Obi-Wan did not question that intuition, nor their seemingly miraculous survival. 

Neither did Qui-Gon. His insistence on ‘staying in the Moment’ centered more on being aware of the precise tipping point, the instant that nebulous danger changed from potential to stark reality. 

Yet something told Obi-Wan that his Master had broken his own rules on this last mission, maybe even the last several, and allowed himself to be pulled along by the Force. Obi-Wan hadn’t given it much thought when Terza reminded him they were long overdue for a rest period, but now he counted back a string of at least fifteen missions, each one more strained than the last. The whole galaxy had been trying to pull itself apart since Yinchorr. That strain was beginning to tell on his Master, and Obi-Wan hadn’t even noticed it. 

Worse, when Qui-Gon had recommended him—rather abruptly—for his Trials, Obi-Wan had almost immediately assumed he’d committed some sort of grave error, and couldn’t think what it was. Disagreeing with his Master? Qui-Gon had always welcomed his objections before, given them their due, and then done what he thought was best—if not what Obi-Wan thought was best. 

Certainly not this time. That was it, wasn’t it? He’d felt ignored, discarded… and yet he hadn’t even thought what the Council’s decision would mean for Anakin. The boy had been bought out of slavery, brought to the Core, tested by the Council—only to be told that he would not be trained? 

Obi-Wan surfaced from his meditation trance abruptly, bewildered, and found himself staring across the room at Anakin’s sleeping form, curled up on the cot at the other side of Qui-Gon’s biobed. 

“Now what the hells did that mean,” he muttered softly. That Anakin would not be trained, but—what? Sent back to Tatooine? That seemed unlikely. Admitted to some sort of program for repatriated slaves? There were few on Coruscant. There was a program on Alderaan, there was—well, there was Naboo, and Obi-Wan thought Padmé would have gladly accepted Anakin here, if she’d known of the difficulty. But the Council could not have guaranteed a home for Anakin anywhere. Even if they could, even if it could somehow be arranged—it was dangerous for Anakin to remain untrained. Even Terza, who’d only just met the boy a day ago, had been shocked to hear it. 

It troubled him that the Council had offered no alternative. 

It felt… wrong, even cruel, to leave Anakin with no certainty of his future. Anakin had never been given any say in his own fate, or his mother’s. As far as Obi-Wan knew, they’d both been born into slavery, each day entirely at their master’s whim. Qui-Gon mentioned that Shmi’s insistence that Watto was not the worst of masters, but given his apparent gambling habits, Obi-Wan wondered just how far into debt Watto’s kindness would last. 

Obi-Wan tried to see the boy just as he was—nine years of age, kind, and eager to please. But when Obi-Wan looked at him through the Force, he felt his jaw drop. 

Anakin lay curled up, lit in gold by the warm rays of morning light. His hair fairly blazed with it, and that was almost the only part of him visible under the blanket and cloak Obi-Wan had wrapped around him the night before. In the Force, Obi-Wan saw much the same picture. Gone were most of the grim potential futures that had plagued Obi-Wan so, only days before. On Coruscant, they’d been wrapped around the boy like catchers’ webs. Obi-Wan caught his breath and stared without thought for a long moment, basking in the golden warmth of this sun-streaked Force presence, a shining nova even when wrapped in natural shields. 

For the first time since waking from psychic exhaustion, Obi-Wan realised that a heavy weight was missing from his mind. Weight of potentiality, weight of the Force, the portent of something dreadful about to happen—that was gone. Instead there was a sense of uneasy lightness, almost bewilderment, that matched Obi-Wan’s feelings so closely he hadn’t realised they weren’t entirely his own. 

The last few years had been a study in disaster control. Qui-Gon had once called it ‘catching wreckage in an overlarge net’—and their efforts did seem to be grossly ineffective at times. But Qui-Gon, with his ability to draw Obi-Wan back to the immediate present, had often done so with the simplest things—the beauty of a star-speckled sky, the warmth of the sun on a crisp winter’s day, the simple joy of petting a stray ‘pathetic lifeform’. Ruefully, Obi-Wan had to admit that the habit had stuck fast. There was joy enough in Anakin’s smile and the warmth of his presence that Obi-Wan had found it reassuring, and it calmed him despite the questions that still churned, unanswered, in his mind. 

Anakin chose that precise moment to stir. Obi-Wan smiled, watching as the golden head poked out of the tight bundle Anakin had wrapped himself into in the night. “Hello, Ani,” he greeted softly, and was treated to a wide-eyed look of surprise as the boy shook the last dregs of sleep from his mind. 

“Hi, Mister Obi-Wan,” he half-whispered, conscious of the sleeping Master in the room. 

Obi-Wan grinned. “Just Obi-Wan will do, you know,” he pointed out. Anakin smiled shyly. “All right. Firstmeal?” 

That got him an eager nod. 

Just outside the room, they met Eirtaé, who informed them that they were in the Handmaidens’ part of the Palace. She directed them a little ways down the hall and into another mostly private room, with windows opening out to the gardens. It wasn’t a long walk, but by the time Obi-Wan caught sight of the food and the cushions around the table, he was glad for all of it. 

“Most of us have already eaten, but we will find you and join you for midmeal,” she said. “Terza has asked me to monitor Master Jinn’s condition for the time being.” 

Obi-Wan thanked her, privately wondering if Terza had recruited Eirtaé for her medical training. He hadn’t yet seen any Healer Padawans about, but it was still early in the day. He half suspected that Eirtaé, and perhaps another Handmaiden, had imposed a system of shifts and sleeping hours that Terza had not been permitted to ignore. 

Anakin bounced along beside him, energetic as could be expected of any youngling. Jedi decorum was one thing, but even nine-year-old Initiates and Padawans had plenty of energy to spare. 

Breakfast was still laid out, and a pair of Handmaidens were still in the room—Cordé and Dormé, Obi-Wan thought. They were both glad of the company, and they pointed Obi-Wan almost directly towards the tea. He thanked them happily and decided that he might as well try to introduce Anakin to the wonders of—‘leaf juice’, Anakin called it. Obi-Wan laughed. Maybe it wasn’t so surprising that muja juice went down far more smoothly, though Obi-Wan personally made a point of ribbing Anakin about it. 

When Cordé and Dormé left for their separate roles in Theed cleanup duties, Obi-Wan reached out and squeezed Anakin’s shoulder gently. “Ani, do you mind if I ask you something?” 

Anakin gave him a wary look. “Like what?” 

“Like how you ended up in a starfighter and destroyed a control ship,” Obi-Wan said, smiling. 

“Oh! Well it was on autopilot. I asked Artoo to shut it off, but by the time Artoo could get to it, we were already out there.” 

Obi-Wan couldn’t help a wash of fondness for the boy, despite the fact that he should have been, perhaps, telling him never to do anything like that ever again. 

“And how did you manage to destroy the control ship?” he asked, thinking that maybe it would be wiser if he didn’t, but when had he ever learned good sense?

“They were shooting at us, and I think we got hit. I was trying to get away from them and crashed in the big ship’s hangar bay. But there were droids coming at me and shooting there, and I didn’t know what the controls did, so…”

“So?” Obi-Wan prompted gently, hard pressed to hide his amusement at this point. 

“Well I tried to raise shields but I couldn’t find them,” Anakin admitted sheepishly. “I accidentally shot the ship a couple times.” 

“You did very well, Ani,” Obi-Wan said, finally. “One more question: did you know what you were going to do up there, when you got to the fight?” 

Anakin shrugged. “No. It was an accident, Mister Obi-Wan, I swear.” 

Obi-Wan doubted it—not that _Anakin_ thought it was an accident, but that it had been an accident at all. “Ani, did you feel like there was something you _had_ to do while you were there?” 

“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “A little, I guess.” 

“And did you still feel that after destroying the control ship?” 

Anakin thought about it. “No. I was just glad I got the bad guys.” 

“I see.” Obi-Wan grinned and ruffled Anakin’s hair in a familiar gesture. "Well done, Ani. That accident saved a lot of people. I’m glad you’re all right, too."

That was the sobering thought—how easily it could have gone wrong. Not training this child was absolutely out of the question. 


	3. Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few days' lull follows the Battle of Naboo. The Naboo clean up as much of the damage as possible, the Handmaidens keep a sharp eye on their Jedi guests, and Obi-Wan gets to know his brother-Padawan.

Obi-Wan was surprised at the speed with which Anakin absorbed anything he’d been taught. It was like watching water vanish into parched desert ground. They’d even formed something like a rudimentary bond, though Obi-Wan suspected that was more due to Anakin’s strength in the Force and an innate ability to form bonds as easily as breathing. He could already see the fledgling connection Anakin had with Padmé, one that had the potential to become a full pair-bond with time. Obi-Wan accepted his bond with Anakin as a sign of trust, and it was one that warmed him right to the core of his being.

Despite Anakin’s eagerness to learn just about anything that came his way, he encountered difficulties very quickly. It had occurred to Obi-Wan that this might happen, almost from the very beginning. He’d been careful to warn Anakin that he was simply trying to get a general idea of his abilities and particular skills.

Anakin had never been given much of an opportunity to learn anything that did not benefit his slavemasters in some way, and as such he had few fundamentals to draw on, but a keen understanding of some more complicated concepts. He couldn’t quite master fine manipulation of objects with the Force yet, but his precision with machinery was unparalleled, and some of the fine manipulation would be impossible to do by hand. Obi-Wan suspected that much rested on unconscious, intuitive skill instead, almost as though Anakin couldn’t believe that he didn’t need to rely on touch alone.

Unlearning intuition in order to then rebuild understanding, step by conscious step, was never easy.

Though, Obi-Wan reflected, where Anakin’s fine manipulation was concerned, assembling a mechanical mentally while focusing on the pieces would probably make an interesting meditation exercise, someday. He filed away the thought for later. After all, interesting as that would be to try, it would still mean starting at the more complicated end of things first. For the moment, they were still struggling with entering a light trance.

Obi-Wan was not surprised to discover that meditation proved to be a challenge. Crèchelings were raised with a rigid schedule—meditations in the morning and evening, often helped along by songs or puzzles that were meant focus the mind. Anakin had never had the training to simply sit still—nor, perhaps, any reason to, if he’d been tinkering in Watto’s scrapyard since he could remember. More than that, he was obviously reassured when given a task or when he found something to keep his hands busy.

Obi-Wan had already made note of the fidgeting—lip-biting, picking at the cuff of a sleeve, all of the little ‘tells’ Qui-Gon had slowly coaxed out of Obi-Wan years ago. A perfect sabacc face was invaluable to a diplomat, after all. Obi-Wan thought about all the aids he’d ever relied on—the river stone with its smooth rippled planes and comforting warmth in the Force, the meditation beads that clicked quietly in his hands. Not that he’d brought either of those with him here. Which was unfortunate, actually; he’d been having difficulty staying in a trance himself, lately.

He’d found that music could be helpful, on occasion. There were the tunes everyone learned in the crèche, but Obi-Wan suspected it was their familiarity that helped Padawans trance down to them. After all, most of those tunes had been used as lullabies. Obi-Wan had taken several music courses, though, and remembered that simply listening to instrumental pieces had helped him at one time.

To that end, Obi-Wan had found recordings of music that could potentially serve as meditation aids (with Dormé’s help), even if they weren’t quite what he would have chosen. Naboo preferred flowing melodic lines, things easily followed—not the slightly rhythmic minimalist music with little pattern to focus on. Obi-Wan encouraged Anakin to just listen, tried to guide him along to float on the melody.

It wasn’t working, as Obi-Wan quickly realised. It might have been amusing, too, but for the sense of frustration he was beginning to pick up on from Anakin. Small wonder, how everything they’d tried didn’t seem to help.

“All right,” he said finally, gently. “So music doesn’t work. Not to worry—”

The wide-eyed look on Anakin’s face surprised him, and there was a touch of fear there that made him hide a wince. _Not so different from Initiates anxious of disappointing potential Masters,_ Obi-Wan thought then, and nearly flinched in truth.

“It’s what most Initiates start with,” he hastened to explain, “and while music works for quite a few, it isn’t necessarily the answer for everyone.” The frightened look didn’t exactly go away. “Ani, what’s wrong?”

Anakin bit his lip and tugged at the cuff of his sleeve. “Mister Obi-Wan, are you going to send me back if I can’t do it?”

Obi-Wan felt his eyebrows jump before he could restrain himself.

“No,” he said softly. “No one is going to send you back, Ani. Why do you think we would?”

“If I can’t do something,” Anakin insisted. “Are you going to send me back?”

Obi-Wan shook his head slowly. “Just because you can’t do something you’ve never done before on your first try?”

“But it’s—” Anakin flushed, as though embarrassed, and mumbled something about “just sitting still”.

Obi-Wan smiled a little. “Anakin,” he said, and waited for the boy to look up at him again. “We talked about this last night, didn’t we? It’s not just sitting still, and it’s not just talking to yourself. It’s all right if you don’t manage on your first attempt—you’ve never had to do this before.”

Apparently, his words had not been very reassuring. “But you said it was important, for, for the training.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Yes, it’s important to know. Meditation has many uses, from organising your thoughts to sorting through emotions, even to help your body heal from injury. But the fact that you can’t do it right now does not mean you will never be able to.”

There was no answer, nor any sign that Obi-Wan’s attempts at reassurance had been taken as such.

“Ani, what are you afraid of?” Obi-Wan asked—softly, calmly, as Qui-Gon sometimes had when Obi-Wan woke up screaming in the night from visions, or when his shields clamped down so tight he himself hadn’t noticed.

Anakin looked miserable. “That you’ll send me back, if I’m not good enough.”

Oh, and wasn’t that familiar. “Anakin, you will not be sent back there. That, I can promise.”

“But—” Anakin tried, and then stumbled.

“Are you afraid that you won’t be able to learn something?”

He shook his head.

Obi-Wan hummed. “Then, what do you mean, ‘not good enough’?”

Anakin shrugged, picking at his sleeve again.

“But you’re still afraid of being sent back.”

The boy squirmed uncomfortably. “You’re not—you’re not a master,” he mumbled finally.

“No.” Obi-Wan didn’t catch the full meaning at first, staring blankly at Anakin like he’d just stated the obvious. Of course he wasn’t— “Oh, I see. You're worried about the Council.”

“I know you said not to worry about them, and Mister Qui-Gon said not to, but—but they almost sent me home and they wouldn’t listen to him,” he said in a rush.

Obi-Wan held back a grimace. It couldn’t have been difficult to pick up on the hierarchy in the Council chambers. Everyone deferred to Yoda, Mace was the Head of the Order, and Qui-Gon was a thundercloud that had swirled in on a bad day and demanded his case be attended to between the cajolement of Senators and Committees for budget resolutions. Their relationship with the Council might well be summed up with ‘as good as can be expected’: they were sent to messy assignments no one else would touch, dressed down for causing trouble, cleared of wrongdoing once the Council heard their report.

They’d rarely come to the Council with a request, however, and this time their request had been roundly denied. Of course it would look as though Master Qui-Gon had no power there. _And he didn’t,_ Obi-Wan thought bitterly. But how to explain that to Anakin?

Obi-Wan frowned thoughtfully, choosing his words with practiced and determined care. “Qui-Gon… often thinks that the people for whom he has taken responsibility deserve more than we can give, while focused on the mission. Which is to say, when the Council gives us an assignment, they do not expect us to cause or support a local revolution,” Obi-Wan explained with a wry little smile. “Unfortunately these things have a tendency to happen without provocation. But we generally don't start trouble if it can be avoided.”

“So, you help if it’s important.”

“If the revolution can be quick, as bloodless as possible, and put in control a government likely to keep the peace and rebuild afterwards? Then, yes.” Obi-Wan’s smile warmed a little. “So, you can see, we’re usually troublemakers.”

Anakin grinned. “Okay. So I was one trouble too many, huh?”

Obi-Wan sobered. “Sort of. Maybe one too many for the Council, that particular day. Qui-Gon is not the only trouble they have to deal with, after all.”

“But I thought—” Anakin stopped short, then shook his head.

“What is it?”

Anakin peered at him for a longer moment this time. “I thought Jedi were supposed to _help_ people,” he said, and that struck Obi-Wan in a sore point he’d been nursing since the day after the battle.

“One would think,” he said, the bitter words slipping out before he could stop himself. “I wonder if the Council has taken to thinking in terms of the needs of the many balanced against the needs of the few, when in truth, we should be following the Will of the Force,” Obi-Wan admitted, shaking his head. “But that is as much a choice as helping people, after all.”

“So they’re no different than masters anyway, I guess.” Anakin frowned.

Obi-Wan froze, tried to open his mouth to speak and found himself completely at a loss for words. “No, not—” A thought struck him, and he reconsidered. “Ani, when you first saw Master Qui-Gon, why did you offer to help him?”

Anakin shrugged. “He felt—nice. Like light. Like green, although I didn’t know what that meant until I saw this place.”

Obi-Wan almost laughed, the description was so accurate. “Naboo? Yes, it’s very green.” He’d always thought of his Master’s presence in much the same way, a feeling so strong it was almost a scent, like brightly-lit summer sweetgrass. “But Qui-Gon is a Master.”

The boy frowned. “Like the Council?”

Obi-Wan nodded. “They are Masters of the Order, yes.”

“But it doesn’t sound the same when you say it.”

“What doesn’t sound the same?”

“When you talk about Mister Qui-Gon, it doesn’t sound the same as when you talk about the others.”

Obi-Wan thought about that for a moment. “Well, he’s my Master. Anakin, what do you hear when I say ‘master’?”

Anakin made a face. “Owner. But Padmé said there is no slavery in the Republic.”

“Hmm. Then, do you suppose, the word might mean something different here?” Obi-Wan asked, letting a hint of amusement colour his question.

Anakin stuck his tongue out at him. “Okay, what does it mean?”

Obi-Wan smiled. “It doesn’t mean ownership of property, to us, because the Jedi do not own very much. It means ownership of knowledge and craft—mastery of skill.”

“You still say it differently for Mister Qui-Gon and for the others.”

“I do,” Obi-Wan agreed easily. “Qui-Gon has trained me for almost eight years now. I speak and think of him differently because he is _my_ Master—my teacher, my friend, but he has also been responsible for me for all those years.”

Anakin looked up at him. “Like Mom?”

That gave Obi-Wan pause, caught up in the feeling of a sudden twinge in his chest. “Perhaps. In many ways, and especially in the beginning, yes.”

Anakin nodded, and Obi-Wan gave him time to think that over, waiting for the next question. He was certainly not disappointed.

“But the Council,” Anakin said, “they still tell you what to do. Don’t they?”

Obi-Wan shrugged at that. “Yes. But Council Masters are… a bit like judges. First of all, they must be chosen by the Council—which means, if anyone in the Order objects to an appointment, they have a period of a few days in which to make their objection public and petition for removal of a Councilor if necessary. Council Masters also choose to be responsible for the whole Order.”

Anakin wrinkled his nose at him. “So what does that mean? They tell everybody what to do?”

“They decide what is best for the future of the Order—for all Jedi,” Obi-Wan told him. “Sometimes they may decide that one person’s decision does not benefit the thousands of Jedi they are responsible for.”

Anakin puzzled that over for another moment. “But what if they’re wrong?”

_That is the question of the day, isn’t it?_ Obi-Wan reflected a touch sourly. “Everyone makes mistakes, Ani. No one person can know what is best for multitudes.”

Anakin’s frown hadn’t vanished, but Obi-Wan felt the Force lighten. Already, Anakin’s shields were better and tighter than this morning, but Obi-Wan wondered if the boy would ever be able to mask just how brightly the Force burned in him.

“Ani, the Council made what was clearly a rushed decision, in the midst of the election of a new Chancellor and an unclear future for the Order,” Obi-Wan said finally. “I am certain they can be persuaded to review that decision.”

He infused his words with calm, and that chased away the remaining worries.

“Now—shall we try something else?”

Anakin nodded eagerly.

Anakin had taken well to learning basic katas. It was almost a moving meditation, once an Initiate was familiar enough with the steps. Obi-Wan thought that perhaps Anakin might remember one of the basic katas well enough to attempt a series of smooth repetitions, and maybe a change from one form into another.

The difference was almost immediately apparent. The first three sets were still a matter of thinking about the steps, but after that it was almost as though Anakin had turned the katas into a well-remembered dance, and began to run through them without focusing on the steps.

Obi-Wan took a moment to step back and just watch, beaming proudly. This wasn’t exactly like his rotations on Coruscant, which he spent either in the crèche or tutoring Padawans and helping them with their saber skills. This left him feeling warm and proud in a way he’d never quite felt before. Obi-Wan sensed the unease Anakin had been carrying with him dissipating even further, could almost see the boy’s Force presence fill with a sense of calm.

He wished Qui-Gon had been awake to see it. The thought occurred to him suddenly, forcefully; the accompanying wave of longing and near-grief almost took his breath away.

Anakin came to a stop on some unnumbered repetition and looked over at Obi-Wan with a wide grin. “I did it!”

His triumphant joy was catching. “Yes, you did! Well done, Ani,” Obi-Wan grinned, and reached out to ruffle the boy’s hair. “ _Excellently_ done. We’ll work on sitting still again tomorrow,” he added, half-teasing. Anakin shot him another one of those wrinkled-nose looks, but it didn’t dampen his spirits.  

It was just approaching time for midmeal, in fact, and a couple of the Handmaidens had been witness to his success only moments before. Cordé and Sabé happily shared in Anakin’s joy, then offered him a few of their own methods for meditations while Obi-Wan listened in with great interest.

Sabé caught his elbow and drew him aside at the door to the room where breakfast had already been served, subtly waving Cordé on. “May I ask, Jedi Kenobi, do you intend to train that boy?”

Obi-Wan eyed her carefully. “Yes, why?”

“It was my impression, perhaps a mistaken one, that your Council was not very welcoming,” she said softly.

Obi-Wan raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I don’t wish to pry, but the entire flight here, Anakin did not strike me as one who was certain of his place or his future,” Sabé explained. “Yet you are teaching him.”

Obi-Wan gave her a subtle bow. “You are very observant, Lady Sabé. I do intend to petition the Council to—reconsider.”

Sabé smirked, but it was a momentary thing, and faded behind the serious mask once more. “Padawan Kenobi, as I recall, your rank is not among the highest in the Order. Do you believe your petition will sway them?”

“I believe I do have some leverage,” Obi-Wan said a bit grimly, as his eyes followed Anakin through the room. “Or, I should say, Anakin does. He did destroy the control ship, I understand.”

When he looked at Sabé again, her expression was grave, and strangely sympathetic. “Cynicism does not become you, Jedi Kenobi, but I fear I understand your position all too well. I imagine that kind of leverage would convince even the most staid of your traditionalists. But, should Anakin have need of anything—anything at _all_ —I believe you may approach Queen Amidala with any request.”

Obi-Wan bowed again, more deeply this time. “I will bear that in mind, Lady Sabé. Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

The Queen’s Handmaidens doted on Anakin. It was a joy to watch, how they tried their best to spoil him half to death. But, as Obi-Wan followed the ensuing madness, he found himself aching at the sight. They plied Anakin with food and water and fruit juices—not that Anakin needed much encouragement to try new things, but he was a bit shy of taking food, or anything larger than a half-portion. When Obi-Wan had rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder, he’d squeezed reflexively, and nearly winced, feeling little more than bone under his fingers.

One of the handmaidens—Teckla, Obi-Wan thought—must have noticed both his worry and Anakin’s discomfort. She sat down beside the boy and pointed out each dish to him in turn, explaining what they were made of and how. Obi-Wan quickly realised she was also telling him which would keep best without a cold-store. When next he caught her eye, he offered her a sincere bow of thanks, and got a smile in turn.

Much as he was aware that the Handmaidens were fond of Anakin, Obi-Wan was surprised to find that if he looked away from his plate for one moment, someone would surreptitiously add a roll or a fruit, or some of that cheese he’d particularly favoured. His cup of tea somehow never quite got the chance to stay empty.

Towards the end of midmeal, Cordé had talked Obi-Wan into letting them watch Anakin for a time—though, in fairness, he didn’t need much convincing. Terza had warned Obi-Wan that he would be sleeping off the psychic overextension for a few days. The lethargy and muscle weakness no longer clung to him as it had before, but Obi-Wan wasn’t fool enough to ignore his body’s limits again—certainly not under the Healer’s watchful eye.

There were other reasons: Obi-Wan wanted to look in on Qui-Gon, and Anakin had mentioned wanting to see Artoo again. Besides, for a first attempt at meditation, Anakin had done very well that morning, and Obi-Wan wanted to give him some time to think over what they’d discussed before trying again.

Eirtaé was just leaving for midmeal herself when Obi-Wan returned.

“He hasn't woken yet,” she said softly, rising to give him the chair.

Obi-Wan’s Force-sense reassured him that his Master was no longer in that unaware, wandering state of consciousness that had marked the first hours after Terza's surgical intervention. He checked almost automatically now, whenever he came back to his Master's side. It had worried him a great deal that Qui-Gon was trapped in his own mind, especially given the nature of his nightmares, and how difficult it had been to pull Qui-Gon back from them. “Thank you, Eirtaé,” Obi-Wan said, smiling. “I’ll stay with him.”

“Is there anything you need?”

That was a good question. “Have any of Naboo’s trading partners been informed that the blockade is down?”  

Eirtaé frowned. “I don’t believe so.”

“I thought as much. In that case, I’ll need a long-range comm and a quiet place to make a few calls.”

The Handmaiden gave him a sly sideways glance. “You’re going to talk our trading partners into returning to a spaceport we’ve barely even cleared?”

“It’ll take most of them days to get here,” Obi-Wan said. “And I’ll help with the clean-up.”

Eirtaé looked a touch amused at that. “If Healer Terza clears you for that, we would be grateful for your assistance.”

Obi-Wan smiled. “She warned you, didn’t she?”

Terza seemed to have preternatural knowledge of patients who would escape her custody and happily go about pushing themselves past all reasonable limits. Then again, she was surrounded by Jedi.

Eirtaé proved herself a worthy recruit when she didn’t confirm his suspicions—though she couldn’t quite hide a quick grin that gave Obi-Wan his answer anyway—and only said, “I’ll ask Captain Panaka about a secure comm and our outworld trade contacts.”

Obi-Wan settled into the seat at Qui-Gon’s bedside again with a sigh. His Master was too still, too pale, that the only sign that he yet lived was the shallow rise and fall of his chest. He needed to be here in case his Master woke. Or couldn’t wake. Again. He also needed to _do_ something, else he’d go stir-crazy. Terza probably wouldn’t appreciate him doing katas in her ward, even this improvised space in the Theed Palace, even though he certainly had control and precision enough to break absolutely nothing.

He cast about for any kind of distraction, and in the end settled for Qui-Gon’s datapad. His Master always kept some sort of reading material with him that didn’t pertain to missions. It was ever an eclectic mix of philosophical texts, excerpts of poetry from the Archives, latest reports of Jedi research from one of the distant outposts, short stories or novels. Once, Obi-Wan had found a series of short stories so deeply rooted in Jedi philosophy that he felt sure they’d been written by a Jedi—an Archivist, even. Qui-Gon had neither confirmed nor denied, but admitted with a tiny smile that he’d only been reading them at Tahl’s recommendation.

Half an hour later, a touch at his elbow announced Eirtaé’s return with a comm, a code for a secure channel, and a neat list of all the more recalcitrant contacts who refused to venture within firing range of a blockade that was verifiably no longer in place.

Naboo’s few trading partners were easy to take care of. Disappointingly easy: despite Obi-Wan’s initial estimate that it would take him the better part of this day and the next to sort out the confusion, it took him far less time than that. He was finished in six hours. There were a few incidentals—formalities for which he would need Sio Bibble’s approval or the Queen’s, and some that were not on Naboo’s end at all.

Qui-Gon’s condition had not changed. Obi-Wan considered meditating, then almost dismissed it out of hand. He was avoiding it, discomfited by some of the questions that Anakin’s curiosity had provoked. In the near future there would be some rather uncomfortable reevaluations to be made, but Obi-Wan didn’t quite want to consider them yet. Too many of them revolved around his view of the Council, and…

No, not yet. Not _now._ Now it would be… too much.

But, at that moment, Anakin appeared—almost as though he’d sensed Obi-Wan’s difficulty. The boy’s whirlwind of energy hadn’t suffered much for the fact that it was getting to be late in the evening. Still, the stranglehold of a hug he subjected his brother-Padawan to was the best feeling Obi-Wan had had all day, and he sank into that physical comfort with a smile.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *toothy grin* I've gotten so many lovely comments about Anakin and Obi-Wan's dynamic, y'all have no idea how much it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. 
> 
> ~~(boy am I excited for the next chapter tho, you have no idea. I added stuff to Ch's 3 &4 today, but _4_ was exciting even before the addition... *snerk*)~~


	4. Patterns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is great clarity in hindsight.

Within the first two days, Obi-Wan and Anakin had already managed to cobble together something resembling a routine. In the mornings, there was firstmeal, followed by katas and attempts at meditation—jittery attempts that gradually smoothed out into successes. Obi-Wan thought Qui-Gon might be pleased by that; he certainly was.

After midmeal, they would go their separate ways. Anakin dove into repairs, scouring starfighters, bantering with droids and pilots alike about weapons firing lagtimes, various atmospheric re-entry hitches, and all sorts of other sundries. In the evenings he’d find his way back to the ward and chatter at Obi-Wan in excitement. From those conversations, Obi-Wan gathered that the starfighters were exceptional machines, and if anything the hitches were a matter of inefficient coding, and said so. The moment Anakin realised Obi-Wan was even remotely interested in the subject, he lit up the Force in his excitement.

Re-programming starfighters hadn’t actually been his goal, but by the time Terza finally agreed to clear him for light duty—which would allow him to help the Naboo with the cleanup in Theed to a very limited degree, at that—he’d seriously started to considered it. Artoo and Anakin were both great company, and even in their excitement they could keep quiet when it was necessary. Obi-Wan had already been plotting a way to get them into the ward, where they could work on that together. Even if Terza wouldn't let them get away with it, he was certain they wouldn't disturb anyone.

For his part, Obi-Wan spent much of his time in the medical wing, wrangling Republic bureaucracy where he could. He swapped that nonsense for reading selections from Qui-Gon’s library when his eyes crossed, just for the variety. It was—Qui-Gon’s reading choices were certainly interesting, but the text deserved his full attention, and he wasn’t exactly in the right state of mind to do it justice. More often than not he fell asleep over the datapad himself, which was irritating, but Terza insisted that it was a normal part of recovering from psychic shock.

Qui-Gon had brief flashes of consciousness—a couple minutes here and there—moments that Obi-Wan hoarded like precious gifts from the Force. He could pick up on a faint trace of frustration in the bond, and found himself smiling whenever he did: that was already more than he’d been able to sense from his Master since… since they’d left Coruscant, actually. He tried not to think about that. Perhaps he was willfully burying his head in the sand, but lately his meditations had left him more troubled and knotted up in confusion than before, especially where they concerned his Master.

There was Qui-Gon’s rather sudden assertion that his Padawan was ready for Knighthood. The Council’s blunt refusal certainly stung, but then, Obi-Wan didn’t feel ready. It was unlike his Master to send him into a situation Obi-Wan was unprepared for, or one he was unable to handle. Together, they made an effective team, familiar with each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and limits. They had a close bond and a working dynamic that few paired Knights could boast.

Obi-Wan was… reluctant to leave his Master’s side, and wasn’t at all certain that it was for the right reasons. Was it that he feared working without that support? Or was it that he expected to fail without it? It worried Obi-Wan that he couldn’t answer that question.

Anakin was a truly bright spot in that murky time. Obi-Wan wondered if it was always like that with Padawans. He wondered if he’d ever been that to Qui-Gon—an anchor in uncertain times. He hoped so. Not that he’d ever ask.

It was a few days before Terza trusted Obi-Wan as far as the field hospitals. That proved as good a distraction as coding might have been, as Obi-Wan spent most of that time very much impressed. For all that the Naboo were a peaceful people, and most had never witnessed such destruction in their lifetimes on their own planet, the repairs and the cleanup of the wreckage progressed with electrifying speed. Naboo relief efforts were nearly as famous as Alderaani, known for their efficiency—but what Obi-Wan saw at play here was a far broader, ingrained to the point of tradition and ceremonial grace.

Terza had let him go with a strict set of instructions to keep from pushing too hard and too soon, and on the condition that he would stop using the Force for heavy lifting the very instant he felt the beginnings of a headache or any dizziness at all. He was to be shuttled out with the relief workers. He would be allowed to assist for one working shift—some five hours—then shuttled back to the city. He would then come back to the ward, where Terza would be waiting for him for a post-outing checkup.

It was best not to risk a Healer’s wrath when they were _that_ specific.  

Obi-Wan was bemused by the fact that he’d been watched over by at least one volunteer the entire time. They were subtle about it, much like Amidala’s Handmaidens, if not as well trained. Ostensibly, he was there for lifting power—moving wreckage, primarily, since the particularly large construction projects on Naboo were not scheduled to take place at all soon. More often than not Obi-Wan found himself redirected to inventory, instead. He didn’t mind the change—the point was to catch errors before they happened, anyway, and he’d had experience enough with organising camps and field hospitals after natural disasters or wars. It was nice to see such camps being folded up and removed, for once.

Obi-Wan was also only permitted to assist for a single shift, then found himself insistently bundled into the shuttle that had brought in a fresh group of volunteers.

Terza met him nearly at the entrance to the ward—which had been nearly halved in size, and cleared of most occupants, Obi-Wan noted. That was excellent progress.

“What did I say about overwork, Kenobi?”

He repeated her instructions dutifully, with a hint of amusement. “Did you put the fear of the Force in every single organiser? Something about keeping an eye out for injured Jedi with no sense of self-preservation?”

The slight smile gave her away, even if she did her best to hide it under the pretext of turning around for fresh bandages. “Those warnings were mostly meant for Master Jinn, but I shouldn’t be surprised to find you leading a mutiny among my patients.”

“How is he?”

“Better, I think. He woke up an hour ago, chewed me out for drugging him and for letting you out of my sight, then promptly passed out again.”

Obi-Wan clamped down hard on the sudden flare of—anger? He should have been here.

Terza shrugged, apparently having sensed nothing of his turmoil. “He’s improving, but the sooner we can get him back to Coruscant, the better. The first full shipment of bacta should be there by now.”

“What exactly is bacta, anyway?”

“It’s an organic material that promotes healing, assists and moderates the immune response. Apparently the Republic made use of it before, sometime predating the Great Sith War, and nearly drove it to extinction. We had a Knight assigned to a mission on Eriadu who somehow ended up on a merry romp around the Seswenna sector—her words, not mine. Apparently she owed one of Eriadu’s lesser Houses a favour, and negotiated a trade agreement for them.”

Obi-Wan’s eyebrow quirked slightly. “And, what, a deal on the side for the Temple?”

Terza nodded. “Ostensibly for research.”

“Impressive.”

“All the more impressive for the fact that my final Healer thesis was precisely on a near magically effective healing fluid described in archived transcripts of early Jedi healers’ notes. That little upstart solved the mystery of the last millennium,” Terza muttered, fondness breaking through her irritated mask.

Obi-Wan grinned. “You’re trying to recruit her, aren’t you.”

Terza sighed. “Not likely. She has very different interests, but it’s worth a try. By the way—one of the Queen’s Handmaidens, Padmé, was looking for you earlier.”

“She’s not a Handmaiden.”

“Oh, I know. But it would be unseemly for a Queen to be looking for someone, wouldn’t it?” Terza grinned. “You’ll find her in the summer gardens with Anakin, when we’re finished here.”

“With Anakin? They’ve taken quite a liking to each other, haven’t they,” Obi-Wan noted mildly. He couldn’t put his finger on what had sparked the concern, but at Terza’s curious look, he tried to put it into words. “All the Handmaidens, in fact. He’s… Anakin is more sure of himself here than in the Temple.”

Really, Anakin had been more sure of himself _anywhere_ outside the Temple.

Terza sat down across from him. “You told me, some days ago, that the Council refused to admit him as a student. That, with his aptitude for the Force, and the little flashes of unconscious use of I’ve seen, he is not to be trained.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “He is too old.”

The Healer grimaced. “The Order doesn’t precisely have the best record with children who were accepted late. An’ya Kuro was one of very few who accepted older students, but her last apprentice was Aurra Sing—you’ve come across her a time or two yourself.”

Obi-Wan felt a cold prickling at the back of his neck. “I had no idea she’d been a Padawan.” Initiate, perhaps, and partly Temple-trained, but not a Padawan.

“Aurra Sing was kidnapped from her Master’s training center. Master Kuro later reported to the Council that she believed she’d pushed too hard, and her methods did precisely the opposite of assuring Aurra of her place among Jedi. So much so, in fact, that during her attempts to recover her Padawan, Master Kuro inferred that the pirates who’d taken Aurra had convinced Padawan Sing that her Master had sold her to them. Master Kuro has trained several Padawans into formidable Jedi. But her failure with Aurra Sing effectively closed the Order’s book on training—potentially _unmanageable_ —children.”

There was a thread of something scathingly acerbic in Terza’s voice. “You disagreed with her methods,” Obi-Wan guessed.

“They were not the sort of methods that served a child who had survived the Nar Shadaa slums and had no memory of anything else,” Terza replied. “And it’s obvious that younglings accepted into the Temple after the age of five do require a different approach than what the créche and most of our Masters are trained to provide. But it would seem that Master Kuro’s methods work for very few.”

“So, the Council has no wish to take on a child who would require a different, nonstandard approach,” Obi-Wan said, keeping his expression carefully blank.

Terza snorted. “A nonstandard approach sets a dangerous precedent. As usual, much of the Order’s ability to function is tied up in monetary concerns. I am aware of Temple funding only insofar as to be concerned with how much our Medical expenses run us every year, but every year it becomes more and more difficult to negotiate for the necessary funds. One child will not change that, but young Skywalker is a Force Sensitive former slave child from the Rim. If we can afford to buy him out of slavery, why not the rest? And Anakin is past the age where he could seamlessly integrate into the Order in a way that would erase all traces of the fact that he is different. Change is expensive.”

It was Obi-Wan’s turn to make a face. “That can’t be it. That’s quite a leap, from one child to freedom for all Force Sensitive slaves, isn’t it?”

Terza tilted her head thoughtfully. “What about Anakin? Is that such a big leap, for him?”

Obi-Wan realised his jaw had dropped, and snapped his mouth shut. “Ah.”

And hadn’t he wanted that on Bandomeer, and on Melida/Daan? To free the slaves on the mining platform, to end the war for the Young? On Bandomeer he hadn’t had the power to do so. On Melida/Daan, he’d stayed behind on the mad hope that he could, and even succeeded.

“But maybe it’s not just that alone,” Terza allowed. “That boy is also the brightest Force Presence I’ve seen in my life, Obi-Wan. Perhaps they fear him.”

Obi-Wan frowned at that. “What? Why?”

That Obi-Wan had been caught up in the dire warnings his Prescience showed him was one thing. For the Council Masters to fear the Darkness in one nine-year-old boy—could that really be…?

“He’s such a bright being, Obi-Wan, so full of emotions that he was never taught to hide,” Terza said, with a wistful smile. “So many younglings are just like that, exuberant lights in the Force, until we train them to bury it under layers of shielding and discipline. Anakin is no mere spark or light; he is a furnace. He _feels_ in a way many of us don’t dare to. He has not been taught to avoid or release his anger or his fear, though I notice he works through it well. Imagine what Anakin’s adolescent years might bring, when the anger and anxiety are difficult for any being to control because their emotions are, in great part, biochemical.” Terza shrugged. “Maybe it’s a foolish thing, to be so afraid of a child with an open heart. But, as I said—Anakin is far past the age when the way he’s been raised can be buried without leaving a trace.”

Obi-Wan frowned. “I see your point.”

There was sure to be some sort of culture shock, at the very least. The worst of it all was that Obi-Wan, being Temple-raised, had no idea where to look for it or expect it. In the last few days alone, he’d come to realise with some bewilderment that Anakin was far more tactile than most Temple beings. That misunderstanding was easily fixed, but others might not be so without lengthy explanations, and perhaps complicated ones.

“But—he _must_ be trained,” Obi-Wan said finally. “Whether or not the Council approved or sanctioned Master Qui-Gon’s decision to free him, Anakin is now our responsibility. And any nine-year-old child who risked his life on a Force-sent impulse to destroy a battle station _needs_ to have some control over their abilities to ensure they actually do survive.”

Obi-Wan looked up to see Terza watching at him. She had a funny expression on her face—expectant, and smiling a little slyly, if Obi-Wan read that right.

“Master Healer, do you have any recommendations for Mind Healers who specialise in repatriation of slaves on Coruscant?”

 

* * *

 

 

The summer gardens were beautiful, lush with inviting greenery that looked as though it might swallow you whole, sprinkled with small white flowers and flashes of vibrant colour. It seemed more verdant than blooming, but Naboo was home to many species that flowered in slow cycles. Some of the most treasured were dormant for nearly centuries, kept in venerated spots and carefully tended.

The garden was home to a few of these—raised beds carefully separating away the precious buds, heavy and nearly ready to break open. Obi-Wan caught a glimpse of red and purple petals peeking out, here and there. He hadn’t exactly made a thorough study of the Naboo language of flowers, but he was not entirely ignorant of it. Humans and Near-Human species carried many interesting traditions with them from place to place, among them some fixed impressions of colour. Red, for instance, and just as often purple, were considered colours of opulence and power on many worlds. It made sense, as both were rarely found in natural dyes.

Maybe it was just a trick of the light in the setting sun, but the purple looked so deep it was nearly black. They looked strangely ominous in the fading light, like blood, like—

_Red haze, red saber, black tattoos, eyes a corrupted bloodshot yellow—_

Obi-Wan shook the feeling off and looked around for Padmé and Anakin, and spotted them near one of the pools.

The pool, aerated by a quiet fountain in its center, was home to smooth-petaled, iridescent-white and soft-pink water lilies, and pretty little fish that absolutely fascinated Anakin. Obi-Wan smiled at the sight of him almost completely absorbed in the simple act of running his fingers through the water and wiggling them at the brilliantly coloured fish.

Anakin jumped up at his approach, looking relieved and more than a little tired. “Obi-Wan!”

“Hello, Ani.” The boy’s happiness was infectious, and Obi-Wan impulsively knelt down and opened his arms, finding himself almost immediately wrapped in a tight embrace.

“How is Qui-Gon?” Anakin asked him, leaning back a little, but still holding on.

“Terza says he is better, and that he’ll probably be awake tomorrow,” Obi-Wan said.

Anakin ducked back into the hug and clung to Obi-Wan more tightly, small body suddenly tense in his arms.

“Do you want to go back to see him?” Obi-Wan asked gently.

Anakin nodded, and out of the corner of his eye Obi-Wan noticed Padmé’s subtle gesture. He refused to be surprised at the sight of Cordé melting out of the vine-covered wall. Obi-Wan had barely even felt her presence, though he’d recognised the feeling of being watched.

Cordé reached out and rested a hand on Anakin’s shoulder, softly and patiently coaxing him out of Obi-Wan’s hold. Obi-Wan understood Anakin’s reluctance, though. Had it not been for Padmé’s request to speak with him, he would have taken Anakin back himself. Not for the first time, Obi-Wan forced himself to quash that anxiety that kept pulling him back to Qui-Gon’s bedside.

The boy finally let go, gave Obi-Wan a trembling smile, then bowed to Padmé and followed Cordé out. Obi-Wan watched them for a moment, marveling at how easily the Queen’s Handmaidens had all but adopted Anakin. Then he remembered he’d been called here for a purpose, and turned back to Padmé with a respectful bow. “Thank you for watching him, Highness.”

“Ser Jedi, my friends call me Padmé,” she said, smiling.

“Thank you, Padmé,” Obi-Wan offered warmly, “but in that case, I am Obi-Wan.”

“Obi-Wan. Thank you. And it’s no trouble, Anakin is a delight.”

“He certainly is. Healer Terza told me you wished to speak with me?”

Padmé nodded, almost immediately sobering. “We received a transmission from Coruscant almost immediately after the signal jammers were taken down. The Chancellor will be arriving the day after tomorrow.”

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow cautiously. “So soon? It’s four days’ travel from Coruscant to Naboo.”

Padmé nodded. “Chancellor Palpatine departed immediately following his confirmation—to be with his people, he said.”

“Ah.” Obi-Wan tilted his head slightly. “That was a very fast confirmation.”

“How many Votes of No Confidence have been called in the last century? Nobody wants to hang in the air indefinitely without a government. The voting had already taken days.”

Obi-Wan frowned, and looked over at her. “You knew that was a possibility, and you called for a vote of No Confidence anyway?”

Padmé’s brow furrowed. “The Senate all but ignored our petition until my arrival. I had to do something, else the petition would have died in the courts. A few days did not seem so great a delay in comparison.”

“No,” Obi-Wan agreed. “But you had no way of knowing that the newly elected candidate would be sympathetic to the Naboo.”

The furrow deepened. “I didn’t—Senator Palpatine believed that a new Chancellor would certainly be willing to help the Naboo as their first act in office.” She looked bewildered. “I truly felt it was the best option available to me, but now… I cannot see how I could justify taking such a risk.”

Obi-Wan felt a chill run down his back—a prickle of the Force nagging at him, but with nothing more to show for its agitation. Padmé did not strike him as the sort of leader who would fail to consider the immediate consequences of their actions. She was bold, certainly, and perhaps reckless—for a Jedi. But Obi-Wan believed her actions were at least well considered for their immediate impact.

Weren’t they?

Force, but he wished Qui-Gon were awake. Though, he had the uncomfortable thought that perhaps even Qui-Gon would be unable to explain the Senate’s infinite wisdom this time.

“Well, no matter,” he said, almost managing to make the words sound light. “The gamble paid off, after all.”

The look Padmé gave him spoke volumes, as much of her disbelief as of a deep disquiet. “Perhaps Palpatine will make a good Chancellor for the Republic,” she said finally.

Obi-Wan bowed his head slightly. “One can only hope.”

Padmé suppressed a sigh. “Yes. I wanted you to know: the Chancellor is to be accompanied by two members of your High Council, Master Windu and Master Yoda.”

“To investigate what has happened here, I imagine,” Obi-Wan muttered.

Padmé shot him a concerned glance. “They did not believe you?”

Obi-Wan grimaced, uncomfortable. “It is a difficult thing to believe when the stuff of legends returns centuries after it was thought to be extinct. The Order as it is today was built around preventing such a thing from ever occurring. But, I imagine, had they believed us they would have sent more Jedi with us.”

He couldn’t stop the bitter thought: _And perhaps my Master wouldn’t be lying in that bed with a ’sabre burn through his chest._

Padmé looked as though she wanted to say something, and had caught herself on the cusp of something inappropriate. Obi-Wan gave her an encouraging look, and after a moment, she spoke.

“Ser Jedi, you have done a great service for our people, one we can never truly repay. Is there something you might wish to ask that would be in our power to grant?”

“Jedi do not seek reward,” Obi-Wan replied automatically, slightly baffled by the quick shift in tone—gods, but he must still be tired.

All that he could want was beyond anyone’s power to grant. He wanted his Master, he wanted his teacher, his friend, he wanted to go home—

He wanted to promise Anakin that it would be home for him, too, and that Qui-Gon would be there for him in every way he needed, every way he’d ever been there for Obi-Wan.

He couldn’t, though. Obi-Wan couldn’t promise that the Temple would be home for him when he couldn’t even argue for the same, save by banking on Anakin’s role in the Battle for Naboo. Obi-Wan couldn’t promise that he or Qui-Gon would be everything Anakin needed, not when Shmi had filled such a large and important part of Anakin’s life.

Oh. That was something, wasn’t it?

Obi-Wan doubled back with the sense that he was about to miss a very important window of opportunity. “But I believe, your Highness, that the true saviour of your people is none other than young Anakin Skywalker, who is not a Jedi. And I imagine that, more than anything else in the world, Anakin would want to see his mother free.”

Padmé’s eyebrows jumped up. “Yet another thing I feel a fool for not having thought of. If Naboo cannot presently spare the resources for her, then the Naberrie family will find a way to repay her generosity and her hospitality. You have given me much to think about. Thank you, Obi-Wan.”

A dismissal, polite and regal. Padmé did perhaps have something left to learn, but she was an excellent leader for her people. Obi-Wan bowed, smiling still. “Good night, Padmé.”

Obi-Wan was not surprised to find Anakin sleeping by the time he returned to Qui-Gon’s room. He was a little surprised to see a small cold storage unit in the far corner, and smiled, thinking he’d better thank Teckla personally the next chance he got. But instead of joining Anakin immediately, Obi-Wan went around to the chair on the other side of Qui-Gon’s bed and sank into it with a sigh. After a moment’s thought, he leaned forward and rested his forearms on the bed, reaching for his Master’s hand and wrapping it in his own.

Was that the barest answering squeeze? Obi-Wan froze, but the movement did not repeat. He marked it down to his imagination with a regretful sigh.

“Come back, Master,” he whispered. “Wherever you are. I still need you here.”

Obi-Wan hadn’t really expected that to work, of course; he wasn’t surprised when Qui-Gon’s fingers didn’t twitch under his, and his eyelids didn’t flicker. Still, Obi-Wan allowed a tidal wave of disappointment to overtake him as he dipped forward until his head rested beside his Master’s arm.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked me if I had plans for Shmi, didn't they? *grin* Padmé's scene has a special place in my heart.


	5. Disquiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then the Councilors arrived.

Qui-Gon woke slowly, in fits and starts. His head felt weighed down, like a freighter had parked on it, his eyes ached, and his breathing was slow in deference to the constant, heated pressure at his side—the wound, no doubt quite serious if he was this well-medicated.

Qui-Gon wasn’t certain—had he… had he caught snatches of conversations? Had he said… did he remember? Healer Terza checking his vitals, complaining about… something. Drugs? Lethargy? He might have protested at all the prodding. Obi-Wan’s worried hovering—or had he dreamt that, too?

It still took entirely too much effort to turn his head in the direction of the soft murmuring he could just make out. The sight that greeted him, though, once his eyes adjusted to both the light and distance, was well worth it.

Obi-Wan was sharing a chair with Anakin, both of them seemingly engrossed in the datapad and murmuring over it, heads bent together. Qui-Gon smiled, seeing the thread of a bond in the Force. His Padawan didn’t look as troubled, and Anakin looked—settled. Less uncertain of his place, Qui-Gon thought.

Obi-Wan had always been good with younglings, even if he never thought so.

The sudden memory of Xan, the never-filled potential of seeing his Padawans together like this sent a sharp pang through him. Xan and Obi-Wan would have been a right menace together, of course. Perhaps Qui-Gon should have been more grateful that the universe had spared him such an unholy duo. But instead he felt an odd dull ache—rather different from the jagged, searing edge that had once accompanied any thought of Xan’s loss.

Qui-Gon blinked and refocused his attention at the sense of being watched. Obi-Wan was indeed looking at him, his expression shuttered. Anakin was happily plugging away at code, but there was an edge of awareness there, too, a sneaky glance out of the corner of his eye.

Qui-Gon smiled. “’Lo,” he tried, then winced at the sound of his voice.

Anakin nearly leapt from his seat. Obi-Wan let him go as the boy made a break for the side of Qui-Gon’s bed, unfolding himself and rising a touch slower. Qui-Gon’s heart twisted at the exhaustion that marked his Padawan’s face, lurked in his stiff movements.

Anakin, though quiet, was practically vibrating with suppressed excitement. “Mister Qui-Gon, sir, you’re awake!”

“Took you long enough,” Obi-Wan murmured from somewhere above him. Qui-Gon’s eyes still had trouble adjusting focus; when he could see his Padawan’s face again, Obi-Wan’s expression had cleared, opened to something quietly incandescent. It matched the relief that lit up their bond, and Qui-Gon could have melted in it.

Qui-Gon swallowed against a dry throat. “’M—sorry,” he whispered, rough and quiet, trying to convey a depth of feeling that he had no words for.

The look reflected back at him in those brilliant, ever-changing eyes reassured him that he was understood.

“I’d—like to—” Qui-Gon struggled to speak against a dry throat, but gave up that idea quickly. _I’d like to sit up, please,_ he thought, hoping it would carry to Obi-Wan while he didn’t quite have the focus to be able to direct it.

Obi-Wan smiled. “Yes, Master,” he said softly, and moved around to slip his hands under Qui-Gon’s shoulders. Qui-Gon expected some sort of pain, but in the end of a brief struggle he was sitting propped up against several pillows, not quite in pain but very nearly out of breath. Obi-Wan regarded him with a pinched frown, then stepped out of Qui-Gon’s field of vision for a second. When he appeared again, he thoughtfully pressed a glass of water into Qui-Gon’s hands.

Then there was a swift exchange between Obi-Wan and Anakin that Qui-Gon couldn’t quite follow, but in the end Obi-Wan lifted the boy up to onto the bed next to him. Anakin promptly curled in against his uninjured side, pressing close. Qui-Gon smiled, reminded of cuddly crèchelings and thinking that he hadn’t been down to see them in far too long. But…

Obi-Wan still hovered just at the edge of his vision, oddly hesitant. Qui-Gon fought the weight in his limbs and sluggishness in his fingers to reach for him, felt his hand caught and squeezed gently. That was already better. He wrapped his fingers as well as he could around one of those warm, calloused hands, and tugged gently, until Obi-Wan turned and perched on the edge of the bed.

“Think we’ll all fit?” Obi-Wan asked, his voice wry and just a touch rougher than usual. Nonetheless he did slide closer, and Qui-Gon somehow managed to encourage Obi-Wan to slip an arm around his shoulders.

For a few minutes, they simply rested. Qui-Gon slowly recovered his breath from the effort the act of sitting up had required, and took stock of his situation. It was difficult to tell what the extent of his injuries was, and what the recovery would be like, but he already knew it would not be kind. Obi-Wan was a steady warm presence at his side, and Anakin, curled up under his other arm, had relaxed completely. Qui-Gon considered that for a moment, wondering if the boy had fallen asleep. A careful glance confirmed it for him.

“That was rather quick,” he whispered.

Obi-Wan smiled fondly, and Qui-Gon nearly melted again where he sat.

“Desert habit,” Obi-Wan explained. “Midday rest for when the suns are at their highest—it’s too hot for most to be outside safely anyway. This last ten has been so exciting and so new; I wouldn’t say Anakin was necessarily sleep-deprived, but—well, he didn’t want to miss anything.”

Qui-Gon tried to hum an acknowledgement, but no sound came out. He let his eyes close and leaned back against Obi-Wan’s shoulder instead. _I imagine I’ve missed quite a bit,_ he sent.

Obi-Wan swallowed, with a dry click loud enough that Qui-Gon heard it. “Some things. Members of the Council will be arriving tomorrow, with the Chancellor.”

“Already?” That was far too soon, by Qui-Gon’s estimates. Unless— _How long have I been out?_

He looked up when Obi-Wan didn’t immediately answer, and sure enough, there was that pinched expression again.

“Five days, Master.”

“Ah.”

“On and off. You don’t remember waking…?”

Qui-Gon sighed—a shallow breath, for he quickly discovered a heated burn at his side when he breathed too deep. “Vaguely.”

“Terza suspects tampering. With your shields.”

_The Sith?_

Obi-Wan nodded slowly. “I don’t know, I wasn’t with you—”

 _You ran ahead,_ Qui-Gon’s mind filled in the unspoken accusation for him.

“You fought him, Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon made an effort to reach out and grasp his Padawan’s free hand tightly, or at least as well as he could. “He could have—used the same method on you, could he not?”

“I don’t believe he thought I was worth the effort,” Obi-Wan said, a fierce and utterly humourless smile baring his teeth for an instant.

“A mistake,” Qui-Gon murmured, and squeezed the hand in his again. _Thank you, my Padawan._

Obi-Wan ducked his head down, eyes squeezed shut. Qui-Gon wanted to comfort him, hold his Padawan close and whisper quiet reassurances into his ear over and over, and desperately fought the feeling that it was not enough.

 

* * *

 

Mace grimly peered at the controls as Garen eased them out of hyperspace just out of Naboo’s orbit. The wreckage of the Trade Federation’s control ship was easily avoided, but Garen clearly didn’t relish the idea of daring an obstacle course. Mace, for his part, shared a moment’s surprise at the paltry remnants of the Federation’s fleet. Not that any amount of arms and warships was legal for a corporation to possess, but all the same—only one control ship, and not all that many fighters.

“Naboo doesn’t have much of a spacefaring navy, though,” Garen pointed out. “At least, not last I heard. Drop a couple signal disruptors at even points in orbit, and communications go down. I hate to say it, but the Trade Federation had it easy.”

Mace sighed. “You’re not wrong, Padawan Muln. I’m sure they keep a list of remote and relatively ill-defended planets to exploit.”

Garen huffed in agreement, distaste plain in the Force. “Naboo ships are _gorgeous,_ though. I’d give my right arm to take a closer look at the designs.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it, Padawan,” Mace said dryly.

“No, Master. Of course not, Master,” Garen said, with a long-suffering sigh.

Mace couldn’t hold back a slight smile. “But I hear there are some lovely new prosthetics available. Your Master might give you some hints, he’s been looking into braces recently. In any case, negotiate first—the Naboo may not ask so high a price. Maybe they’ll settle for a thumb.”

“Yes, Master,” Garen replied, voice laced with humour.

Not for the first time, Mace wondered why Micah and Qui-Gon had ever been allowed to take on Padawans. Their dry wit was painfully contagious and a right menace. There had to be a rule, a line somewhere in the Order’s bylaws that expressly forbid Jedi Masters from having a sense of humour, Mace groused to himself.

 _You’ll miss me,_ Micah had said upon resigning his Council seat. Actually, Mace rather did, and he found Garen’s company on this trip a refreshing and pleasant distraction. He was traveling with Master Yoda and Chancellor Palpatine; Yoda was grim, and Palpatine was a politician. Great gods, but Micah had been right—and Force bless the man for suggesting they take Garen as their pilot. Garen even made up for his Master’s rotten sense of humour with skillful piloting and engaging conversation.

It probably didn’t help that Mace himself was currently almost floating on his feet. He’d had the worst migraine imaginable throughout the whole of the Naboo Crisis, and he was still recovering from it—feeling like a weight of tonnes had been lifted from the top of his head. Terza had once cautioned him that when it came to Shatterpoints, there was little even the Mind Healers could do. Healers at some satellite Temples had submitted reports of pain mitigated by Force Inhibitors, but Terza was firmly against it. Mace, for his part, agreed, but he also wondered how many more Yinchorri-like events he was going to face in the near future.

“Master Windu, if I may ask,” Garen said carefully—immediately setting Mace on his guard, of course.

“Yes, Padawan Muln?”

“Why are we conveying the Chancellor and his guard to Naboo?”

Mace sighed. “Because Council representatives have business on Naboo, and the Chancellor requested our company.”

Garen chewed at his lower lip thoughtfully. “Is Obi-Wan all right?”

Mace glanced sideways at him in concern. “We’ve had no updates since we left Coruscant, but Healer Terza reports that Obi-Wan’s injuries were generally minor.”

“And Master Jinn?”

“Critically injured,” Mace replied without hesitation. “But recovering. Something wrong, Padawan?”

Garen shrugged awkwardly. “A bad feeling, is all.”

Mace drew in a long breath, held it for a count of four, then slowly let it go. If that was supposed to release his anxiety into the Force, he wasn’t sure the method had succeeded. “I know what you mean.”

 

* * *

 

Garen had exceeded expectations, as usual, shortening the trip by several hours. They were arriving in the afternoon by local time, sunlight turning the city of Theed golden. Mace handled the comms, and spent the better part of their half-hour landing approach trying to convince a shuttle-traffic controller that they weren’t a threat, and that the lack of a spaceport wasn’t a deterrent, and that their pilot was indeed skilled enough not to fly into remaining structures in the field or knock them down. Actually, at that point Garen had taken over comms.

They were directed to a cleared landing area outside of Theed palace, within sighting distance of the field hospitals. Much of the pre-fab housing had been taken down already, and none of the remaining structures were large enough to house patients. Mace caught a glimpse of a small cluster of people at the edge of the clearing, most of them in Guard uniform. It looked nothing like an official delegation, but then—he supposed—moving their arrival up by some ten hours hadn’t given the Naboo much time to prepare.

Garen noticed it too. “Huh,” he said. “Almost no one down there. You’d think they weren’t excited one of their own made it to Chancellor.”

Mace let a smile turn up the corner of his mouth. “Padawan Muln.”

“Yes, Master?”

“Let this be a lesson to you about taking an overzealous approach to diplomatic engagements.”

Garen raised his hands and shrugged with a charming look that didn’t fool Mace one bit. “I’m just the pilot, Master Windu.” His grin, however, was irrepressible.

“Of course,” Mace said, indulgent. Then he went back to a more serious tone: “Padawan Muln, when we land, stay with the ship to power everything down and secure it. Shouldn’t take you more than twenty minutes, if I recall correctly. I imagine you’ll want to see Padawan Kenobi—follow our comm signal, it should take you to the right place.”

Generally, “leave the Padawan with the ship” protocol was reserved for situations where the field team was uncertain of their welcome. This wasn’t such a case, and Mace felt nothing troubling in the Force, but somehow it seemed the right thing to do.

Garen almost looked relieved, though he masked the expression quickly. “Thank you, Master.”

Mace nodded. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to run out of reasons to avoid the others.”

Garen grinned. “May the Force be with you, Master.”

“And with you.” Cheeky brat. He was Micah’s Padawan, through and through.

Mace made his way aft to rejoin the Chancellor and Master Yoda, and the pair of Senate guards who’d accompanied Palpatine. He could sense little from them aside from cool, professional efficiency, which was just as well, considering the strained atmosphere between the other two passengers.

Mace’s opinion of the Chancellor was vague and unformed, and all the more pleasant for it. Master Yoda’s mood, however, pressed against his shields like a slab of grey clouds heavy with unshed rain. It seemed the Chancellor had already made his mark there. Unfortunate, that. Master Yoda’s brooding frequently gave the rest of the Council some form of secondhand anxiety, and at the moment Mace was the only one at hand to keep it at bay.

He’d seen the initial Healer reports on Qui-Gon’s injury, though, and he knew what Master Yoda must have been thinking. Whatever mystery medical substance Terza was currently studying, Qui-Gon’s recovery had been nothing short of miraculous, but it could not erase the reality that the first report had been truly dire. Qui-Gon’s Padawan had somehow managed to work his way into one of the few cases of psychic shock on Temple record. Whatever the Council had sent them into, Mace understood that they’d nearly lost them both; and Master Yoda had nearly lost his closest lineage.

In the face of that, Chancellor Palpatine was almost criminally upbeat. Mace could not fault him for doing his best to appear optimistic so early in his term, but there were limits, after all. The lack of any obvious concern over any continued threat from the Trade Federation was unsettling—and, Mace thought, uncharacteristic, what with all the contributions Palpatine had made to economic and legal restrictions on the Federation’s activities.

Maybe the newly-elected Chancellor thought that his position would allow him to dispatch with the conglomerate far more quickly and efficiently, though Palpatine didn’t strike Mace as being nearly so naïve. Determined, either uncautiously optimistic or far too concerned about tipping his hand—this Mace could believe.

Strange, that the Chancellor should be concerned about tipping his hand to the Jedi, however. That he should hold something back while professing a wish to work more closely with the Order _really_ set Mace’s teeth on edge. There was either an excellent politician’s mask at play here, or—

Or perhaps Mace was allowing his worries to colour his perception. Terza had reported that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were both in no danger, but Healers’ reports were not enough. Mace needed to _see_ them to dispel the lingering doubt, despite Terza’s skill and Qui-Gon’s sheer stubbornness. Until then, Mace would keep his shields tight, lest he suffer a gimer-stick to the shins for his lack of trust in the Force.

They were met at the landing area by the Head of the Queen’s Guard, Captain Panaka. A consummate professional, the Captain greeted them from a polite distance, with a restrained nod and a somber expression. “Chancellor. Masters Jedi.”

Palpatine, ever the affable gentleman, smiled brightly enough to rival the sun and swept forward to clasp the man’s hand. “Captain Panaka, we owe you many thanks for your devoted service to the Crown. I trust Queen Amidala is well?”

“The Queen is with her people,” the Captain answered stiffly.

Mace could have sworn he’d felt a pinprick in the Force at that, some significance that the barbed words should have had for the Chancellor. Moreover, it wasn’t exactly an answer. He almost opened his mouth to ask—

“Queen Amidala has chosen to assist with the repairs in city,” Panaka clarified. “You were not expected to arrive until tomorrow, thus the Queen could not be present.”

“For an honourable cause. I suppose I shall just have to join the cleanup effort,” Palpatine replied brightly.

If the reception seemed professionally cool before, the Captain wasted no time in conveying that it was, in fact, colder than Hoth. “Every spare member of the guard has been redirected to the cleanup effort, Chancellor. I’m afraid I cannot guarantee your safety.”

“Do not trouble yourself, Captain,” the Chancellor waved a hand, a gesture that could be either magnanimous or dismissive. “I have my own guard, and they are quite capable.”

Panaka did not exactly glare at the man—that would be unprofessional—but the flicker of tensed muscle in his jaw was eloquent in its own way. “Very well. Please check in with Sergeant Typho at the city gates, he will direct you to the appropriate sector.”

At that, the Chancellor bowed, excused himself, and proceeded to the city tailed by his guards. Mace very carefully kept his expression neutral, though he did notice Master Yoda’s ears twitch upward. The not-so-subtle animosity between the Chancellor and the Queen’s Guard was… intriguing.

Mace half expected the Captain to regard Jedi with an equally frosty demeanour, but when Panaka turned to them, his expression and his Force presence both were far more open. “The people of Naboo owe the Jedi our thanks,” he said.

“We are glad to have been of assistance,” Mace replied, while thinking that the Order would never have been involved at all, were it not for Valorum’s proactive approach to the issue.

Though, Mace supposed this sort of mission was par for the course for the Jinn-Kenobi team. How like them, to be assigned a bodyguard detail and manage to retake a planet instead. Qui-Gon had excelled at this sort of overachievement even before he’d taken Obi-Wan as his Padawan, but Mace thought that, as a team, they were even more terrifyingly effective. It seemed difficult to believe that the typically reserved and pragmatic Padawan Kenobi could encourage Qui-Gon to more reckless actions. _And yet,_ Mace remarked to himself, not for the first time.

“I expect you’ll want to see Master Jinn and Jedi Kenobi. They’re both at the palace—if you’ll come with me,” Captain Panaka said, with a gesture that encompassed both Mace and Master Yoda, his manner brisk, business-like, and still with greater warmth than he had shown the Chancellor.

Mace glanced sideways at the ancient Master, bowed agreeably, and fell into step beside the Captain. “You don’t seem to like the Chancellor very much,” he noted.

There was an immediate spike in tension that Mace regretted just a bit. “No,” Panaka answered flatly.

“I didn’t know he’d ever made plans to run,” Mace mused. “I wonder if the Senate expected he would be an easy man to control.”

Panaka snorted sharply, but the stiff line of his shoulders relaxed. “More fool they.”

Thus far, Mace had seen nothing to indicate whether Palpatine was a shrewd politician or just a well propped up pawn for someone else to use. Palpatine’s hand was behind trade resolutions and numerous budget proposals and plans, but a good economist did not necessarily a good legislator make. Even that was difficult to judge with the Republic heading into a recession, the flurry of new laws and regulations from every major system doing little more than tying up a floundering economy in a myriad of tenuous strings.

It would be only practical, Mace thought, to learn what he could of Palpatine’s career and reception on Naboo.

“I take it, he was not the most popular candidate in Naboo’s political scene,” he ventured carefully.

The Captain vented an irritated sigh. “Palpatine negotiated the deal that gave the Federation access to our plasma trade. He was a member of the party that built its platform expressly in opposition of such deals, and yet because of him the Federation has a seat in the Senate. Because of him, they thought it within their rights to force our Queen into signing a treaty—one that would have made Naboo a protectorate of the Federation.”

“I see. So you hold him responsible for the invasion, then?” Mace asked, curious. He kept his tone light, not wanting to offend the man.

Panaka’s glance slid towards the Chancellor’s back. “Peripherally,” he muttered. “He also saw fit to advise the Queen to stay on Coruscant and await the Senate’s decision, for her safety,” Panaka added, a bitter thread in the words. “The Queen’s safety is _my_ responsibility.”

“Ah.”

Six months ago, after the disastrous Trade Summit on Eriadu, the Senate signed a new budgetary resolution into law—one that taxed previously free shipping lanes. The Trade Federation had been vociferously opposed to the new tax, and Palpatine had been the key author in that resolution’s composition. Captain Panaka’s distaste might be of a personal motivation, but the mention of a younger Palpatine deviating from the party line _in favour_ of the Trade Federation years before definitely gave Mace a place to start.

But that was a matter for another day. “How bad was the damage?”

The Captain’s expression went grim and tight. “Nothing we could not fix on our own,” he admitted, “but the expenses were not accounted for in any budgetary plan. We believe the aim was to force Naboo into giving the Federation rights to our plasma anyway. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that.”

“Do you require assistance with any repairs?” Mace asked, though he was certain the Naboo had their situation entirely under control.

“It will take a little more time to properly restore our main spaceport and some parts of the city, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. Your Healer has already been immensely helpful.” Panaka paused. “If you’re asking whether we require assistance in some other form—Jedi Kenobi has provided us with a list of groups besides the Federation who would be interested in trading with us, and would be amenable to negotiation. I believe he has met with the Queen’s Council to discuss the matter.”

 _Of course he has._ Years of practice served Mace in good stead, and kept his first thought from his face. “If the Queen would find it acceptable, we will assign another Jedi to complete negotiations,” Mace said. “Jinn and Kenobi are overdue for a rest period.”

Panaka nodded. “I will see that you get the chance to speak with Queen Amidala on the matter. She will understand the necessity.”

Panaka left them in the hands of a young Handmaiden named Yané, who who apprised them of the remaining repairs, and of the—impressive—extent of Padawan Kenobi’s assistance in the last few days. She showed them the way to the quarters set aside for off-world guests, which were helpfully situated near the dance hall repurposed to hold a makeshift med center. It was the quieter part of the Palace, Mace realised, set aside for warm weather—large airy spaces, floor-length windows with light spilling in, fresh green smell wandering in from the gardens.

Idyllic, until one realised that, with Naboo’s history of revolutions and coups, this space might almost have been designed to serve a triple purpose of hospital, ballroom and training salle. Mace buried a smile at the thought.

Here, the Handmaiden effectively ended the tour, and gave them a comm code with instructions to contact the Guard for anything at all that they might need.

“You’ll find Jedi Kenobi in the garden,” she said, sketching a faint bow, then turned and left.

They did indeed find Padawan Kenobi in the gardens, sitting in an easy half-lotus with the Skywalker child across from him. Master Yoda paused a moment at the edge, ears twitching up and eyes opening a bit wider in wonder. The air of irritation and grimness he’d carried with him from the ship melted away in late evening sunlight.

Mace looked closer, through the sparkling evening dust motes, and realised they were watching a game of push-feather—though Kenobi and Skywalker played it instead with a fallen blossom and a few of its lost petals. The petals tumbled in orbit about the blossom, even if in a wobbly, weaving sort of orbit.

“Hmm. Remarkable progress, the youngling has made,” Yoda muttered beside him.

Skywalker’s presence in the Force was quieter than it had been, during his testing. His natural shields had been reinforced by careful constructs, though nothing quite hid the raw power within that small frame. The boy felt more at peace, more settled in the Force—very different from the almost jaw-cracking tension that had seeped from him in the Council chamber.

In retrospect, Mace wondered if he’d misread that tension for something it was not. He hadn’t had a young Padawan in years, and hadn’t been down to the crèche in just as long. Mace had forgotten how easily discomfort fed an anxious state of mind, and how easily younglings were reassured, sometimes with little more than a simple explanation. He’d forgotten how many scared children learned to hide their fear, or bristle, rather than show a weakness for which they might expect a slave owner to punish them.

He’d forgotten what it had been like, in the early days, with Depa.

Kenobi’s presence was subtly altered, too. He was also more settled than Mace remembered, though there was an undercurrent to Obi-Wan’s presence that spoke of a deeper disquiet.

That feeling vanished, however, any wisp of it melting away the moment Obi-Wan sensed their presence. Mace bit back a frustrated grumble even as he found himself marveling at the young man’s shields. Obi-Wan hid so much, and so well—Mace had seen that incredible self-possession many times over the course of Obi-Wan’s apprenticeship. After all, he’d learned from the best.

Jinn was right, of course: Obi-Wan _was_ ready for his Trials. Mace suspected that this was an opinion shared by relatively few members of the Council, however. He guessed that at least half their number truly thought Obi-Wan was unprepared. Frankly, Mace was infuriated on Obi-Wan’s behalf, and Jinn’s. If they still believed young Padawan Kenobi to be unprepared for greater responsibility, then they hadn’t been paying attention. The _only_ remotely credible reason Mace could submit to justify delaying Obi-Wan’s Knighting was the concern that his durasteel control could do him more harm than good.

Obi-Wan timed the end of the push-feather exercise to coincide with their approach, easily judging Master Yoda’s gait. He rose, serenely brushing off bits of grass from his cloak, and signaled Anakin to do the same.

“Welcome, Masters,” Obi-Wan said, offering a respectful bow. Beside him, Anakin did the same, but noticeably edged closer to him. Obi-Wan glanced down at the boy, and Mace heard him murmur a quiet reassurance.

“It’s all right, Ani,” Obi-Wan said softly. “You don’t have to stay here, if you don’t want to.”

Anakin looked up at him, obviously nervous, and nodded once.

“All right. Bow to them, as you did just now, say ‘excuse me,’ and go find Cordé—she’s at the garden gate, I think. She will take you wherever you’d like to be, I’m sure. Maybe you’d like to see Artoo?”

There was a quick flash of joy in the Force, and Obi-Wan smiled.

Anakin did exactly as he was told. Mace watched, amused, as the boy executed a near-perfect Padawan’s bow. “Of course, young Skywalker, you may go if you wish,” he said, and smiled. Mace did notice Anakin’s quick twitch of surprise—though, he noted, the Force projection of that particular feeling had been well shielded. Still, it gave him a sharp twinge of remorse, to think that the boy was afraid of him or Master Yoda. Mace wondered what Yoda would think of that.

The ancient Master even seemed content to wait to speak until the boy was out of earshot. “Bonded with the youngling already, have you, hmm?” Yoda asked.

Obi-Wan looked down at him, confusion plain on his face. “Master Yoda?”

“A connection between the two of you, I sense, yes,” Yoda said pointedly—and a bit critically.

Well, it wasn’t as though one could hide much of anything from the old troll. Mace thought he could all but see a similar thought cross Obi-Wan’s features, but the young man recovered his aplomb as though he’d never lost it to begin with.

“The boy is strong in the Force, Masters,” Obi-Wan answered smoothly. “I do not believe he has met many beings who were Force Sensitive like him, until quite recently. His mother, perhaps, though I have not met her, and Qui-Gon did not have her blood tested. Force Sensitive younglings need bonds as much as children need the company of other children.”

“A crèchemaster’s expertise have you, hm, on the raising of Force Sensitive infants?” Yoda asked—a bit facetiously, even—and gently tapped at Obi-Wan’s shin with his gimer stick.

Obi-Wan bowed in deference. “My apologies, Master Yoda, I only—”

“Correct you are, even so,” Yoda huffed at him. “Understandable it is, that bonds, young Skywalker would easily form. Caution you against attachment I would, Padawan Kenobi. Much I have heard of Master Qui-Gon’s affinity for taking in pathetic strays.”

“And encouraged it, from what I’ve heard,” Obi-Wan added innocently.

“Hmph! An impudent youngling, Master Qui-Gon has raised,” Yoda mock-grumbled.

“Yes, Master,” Obi-Wan replied demurely.

Mace sputtered, and covered the near-giggle with a light cough. But the lift in the solemn mood was brief, and tension crept back into the few seconds of silence between the three of them. Obi-Wan shifted uneasily. “Masters… what will become of the boy now?”

“Concerned for his fate, are you?” Yoda asked sharply.

Obi-Wan didn’t deny it. “Yes, Master. The boy destroyed the Federation control ship on purely instinctual reactions. He was guided by the Force, that is true, but I wonder if he realises the full scale of the danger the Force led him into. He is untrained, yet he flew into a dogfight and lived to tell of it.”

Well, when put that way—Mace understood the difficulty. He could almost guess what Obi-Wan must have felt when he found out.

Yoda sighed, and gently thumped his stick against the ground. “The Chosen One, the boy may be. Nevertheless, grave danger I fear, in his training.”

The words were far from encouraging, but there was something in the tone of the old Master’s voice that sounded more like a trial of Obi-Wan’s will than anything else.

Perhaps Obi-Wan had caught the inflection as well; he dropped to one knee before the old Master. “Master Yoda, Sith or no Sith, that is for the Council to determine—not for me. But I know what I felt in that battle. It was Darkness, Master, far worse than Xanatos ever was. Xanatos was unbalanced—mad, even. But this? I have felt nothing like it. It nearly killed my Master. Please, whatever the Council’s decision on the boy’s fate, he is not safe without our guidance. Not from wherever the Force may lead him, and not from that.”

Yoda hummed a low, rough note, and glanced up at Mace.

They had discussed this, before their trip to Naboo, when the shatterpoint tipped right over the delicate knife’s edge it had been balanced on and blew apart into oblivion. Much of it had revolved around the boy. Much had also revolved around the sheer gall of sending Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan to Naboo without assistance. After all, as Adi had eventually pointed out, who better to know a Darksider than Qui-Gon Jinn?

Mace could not offer a formal apology for any of that. The necessity of such statements was generally subject to a vote with a required majority consensus, and could only be delivered in the presence of a representative number of Councilors. But at least Mace himself could admit that they had been… hasty.

“The Council may have been rash in its initial decision,” Mace said. “You are correct, Padawan Kenobi. It would be dangerous to leave the boy untrained.” He waved Obi-Wan up. “We will review Qui-Gon’s petition, and consider young Skywalker’s placement in the Temple crèche.”

Obi-Wan bowed. “Thank you, Master Windu, Master Yoda. Masters, Captain Panaka has informed me that the security recordings are ready. He will show them to you in the throne room, and accompany you to the generator if you wish to see the—”

Mace stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and a gentle squeeze. “Padawan Kenobi, I’m sure the Palace Guard will help us find whatever we need. How are _you,_ Obi-Wan?”

Apparently the question had caught the young man flat-footed. He opened his mouth, surprised, then closed it again, then cast a nervous glance at Master Yoda, but all Mace could sense from the ancient Jedi was a quiet curiosity. It seemed enough to reassure Obi-Wan, though, and he took a moment to find his calm again. “Disquieted, Masters. Unbalanced,” he trailed off, seemingly unsatisfied with the words; then shrugged. “Weightless.”

That sounded… terribly familiar. Mace felt much the same. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Master Yoda’s ears turn down.

Mace squeezed Obi-Wan’s shoulder again. “And how is your Master?”

Obi-Wan’s expression smoothed into a still mask, one at which Mace just barely restrained a wince. Apparently Jinn hadn’t fixed the mess he’d made of that particular bond just yet. Mace supposed he couldn’t blame the man who had spent the better part of the last ten unconscious, but he hated to see Qui-Gon’s student suffering under a weight he should not bear.

“Terza says he is recovering well from the physical wound,” Obi-Wan said at last, “but she believes there might have been—psychic damage of some kind.”

Mace searched his face—still that unhelpful mask, but somewhat pained. “Nightmares?”

Obi-Wan swallowed tightly and nodded.

“See to the security tapes, we shall,” Yoda announced.

“And I’ll speak to Master Jinn afterwards,” Mace added with one final squeeze and a pat. “You have done well, Padawan Kenobi. Rest, now.”

 

* * *

 

 _Rest,_ Obi-Wan thought bleakly, watching the Councilors retrace their way out of the garden. If he did that, he might just fall apart.

He could be honest enough with himself to admit that he’d been avoiding true rest for the last ten, perhaps longer. There were distractions aplenty—teaching Anakin the basics of meditation and katas, feeling his way along what Anakin did and did not know of standard curriculum; pondering how to handle those things back at the Temple. There was Naboo, and their search for new trading partners.

Then there was, always and constantly, his concern for Qui-Gon. It lived at the back of his mind, at the base of his skull, quietly breathing under all else. Days ago Obi-Wan might have said that he would stop worrying when Qui-Gon finally regained consciousness for more than a few murky seconds, but even then, he’d known better. There would simply be different things to worry about, like Qui-Gon’s recovery.

Or the broken shields. Part of the reason, Terza had said, for the extended lack of consciousness, was that Qui-Gon’s mind needed time to rebuild his shields. But Obi-Wan’s thoughts continually snagged on the fact that _he had no idea_ what the Sith could have done to break them during the battle, or even _when_ he might have done it. True, it was possible to taunt opponents, distract them while working at their defenses. But the Zabrak had been sparing with his words—and frankly, with the sense of pain that had bled off him, Obi-Wan didn’t see how he could have spared the attention to try.

He was missing something, he had to be. Usually, that meant something would go terribly, terribly wrong the moment he let his guard down. Obi-Wan could all but hear Qui-Gon’s admonishment: _Do not center on your anxieties, Padawan._ It was easy to slip into paranoia, too.

Obi-Wan’s lips thinned into something approximating a smile, but far too grim for it.

“Excuse me—I’m looking for a Jedi Padawan.”

The distraction could not have been better timed. Obi-Wan felt his shoulders loosen, and this time his smile was far more true.

“He’s probably a bit uptight, could eat you alive for breakfast, and looks like several hundred kliks of bad space travel.”

Obi-Wan snorted, surprised, turning around to aim a largely unsuccessful glare at his crèchemate. “Oh, I didn’t know they let the rabble in. Are you sure you’re in the right place? This is the palace, after all.”

Garen simply grinned at him. “Speak for yourself. You look like shit, Kenobi.”

“You should see the other guy,” Obi-Wan deadpanned, thinking of a body tumbling down a melting pit in two pieces. Startled yellow eyes going dull, the stench of death and blood and burnt flesh hanging in the air behind him—Obi-Wan shook off the thought quickly. “And I was wondering how the Council Masters managed to arrive early. You made four days go faster.”

“So I did,” Garen agreed. “I’m pretty sure that’s why they let me fly the ship, actually.” But the grin slipped off his face, and his gaze sharpened. “How are you, Obi-Wan?”

“Oh, you know,” he hedged—playing for time, casting about for words.

Garen _would_ know, after all: he’d nearly lost his Master on Yinchorr. Or perhaps Obi-Wan simply didn’t know what he felt, in this moment. Hollowed out and tired; overfull, stretched thin, and all but vibrating in place with the number of things he could not fix.

Garen simply stepped close and pulled Obi-Wan into a tight hug. “Hush,” he whispered roughly into Obi-Wan’s hair. “It’s over now. It’s done.”

It was almost enough to break him all over again. “Gar—I almost lost him—”

_I was too late—I wasn’t enough—I failed him, I failed him I failed him—_

“He’s _alive_ , Obi-Wan. That’s not failure.”

Obi-Wan made a face, but discovered that he didn’t want to struggle. He felt warm—finally, blissfully warm. In another moment, his limbs went loose, and his eyelids drooped heavily.

There would be time, he figured, to argue about it later.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funniest thing about writing out of order is realising that part of this chapter was written when nano'17 started, part was written last year, and more than half of it was a complete frikn strugglebus. 
> 
> But the snark was fun! Also Suspicious Politician is Suspicious and Mace is Doing His Best.


	6. Affirmations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which: Mace Windu really enjoys not being Head of the Order for a while, Obi-Wan tries to keep himself too busy to panic, and also Palpatine is creepy af.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, been a while, here, have 10k.
> 
>  
> 
> also, as a kindness to the harried author—  
> please refrain from making comments along the lines of 'omg i thought this was abandoned'
> 
> (because I can promise you)  
> (I may not know a posting schedule if it hit me in the face)  
> (but if this particular monstrosity of a fic ever gets abandoned)  
> (trust me, you _will_ know about it)

“Hello, old man. Can you hear me?”

Qui-Gon blinked into the last warm slant of evening light; the shadows in the room had lengthened already, and someone had helpfully left an active glow globe on the nightstand beside him. It bothered Qui-Gon that he didn’t know who had done so.

He was still feeling rather dazed and mostly useless. Obi-Wan told him he’d slept through most of five days, and though Obi-Wan claimed Qui-Gon woke briefly once or twice in that time, Qui-Gon had no memory of it. In the last couple of days, the situation had improved—Qui-Gon held on to consciousness for longer periods of time, kept up coherent conversations. Even if he slipped into sleep mid-sentence, Qui-Gon would wake remembering those conversations afterwards.

It was clear that Terza was still putting a lot of effort into keeping him drugged. The side-effects were, predictably, unpleasant—among other things, there was the fogginess, the lethargy, and dizziness at the slightest provocation. Qui-Gon couldn’t sit up, not without careful and gentle assistance. But he was at least reasonably certain that hallucinations weren’t part of his new constellation of uncomfortable normal.

Qui-Gon mustered some elusive threads of energy, and slowly turned his head to look over at his visitor

Mace sat in the chair at his bedside. The Councilor was looking uncharacteristically drawn, himself; that was concerning. “Hello, Qui. Good to see you’re still with us. Are you all right to talk, for a moment?”

Qui-Gon managed a single, shallow nod. “Mace. You look like hell.”

Mace raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m not the one who got stabbed, Qui,” he replied, dry as dust.

Qui-Gon smiled, or tried to. “Really? Don’ feel a thing.”

That quip pulled a sharp snort through Council solemnity, but there wasn’t much humour to it. Qui-Gon did his best not to give in to a wave of disappointment; solemn conversations were not something he was currently equipped for.

“I’m sorry, Qui-Gon,” Mace said, and that surprised Qui-Gon enough to distract him, for the moment, from the muddled white noise of his recalcitrant body.

“What… for, Mace?”

The Head of the Order had a very good sabacc-face. As T’ra Saa’s student, Mace had cultivated lethal wit wrapped in an impenetrable deadpan delivery. At the moment, none of that humour was in evidence, and the sabacc face had given way to a thin-lipped, tense expression that looked considerably closer to regret than impassivity. There might have been a touch of anger, too, a self-directed sort of Haruun-Kal disappointment.

“For sending you here alone,” Mace said quietly. “Obi-Wan… he hasn’t said anything, but I can sense his disquiet. If he were to speak his mind, I believe I can imagine what he’d say, and he’d be right, too. Sending you out here despite your report of what happened on Tatooine was irresponsible. If anyone would know what a Darksider felt like, you would; if your opponent was as skilled with a saber as you claimed, then it was our mistake in believing you could handle him, in spite of your insistence that you barely held him off the first time.”

Qui-Gon couldn’t say he’d ever heard an apology—even if an unofficial one—from a Councilor. Certainly not from the Head of the Order, at that. The thought was accompanied by an odd sensation of lightness—and the sense that he had no idea what to do with those words.

Years of ingrained diplomatic habits took over. “Thank you, Master Windu,” he said, automatically. Then, “You saw Obi-Wan?”

Qui-Gon hadn’t seen him since that morning. The Queen had officially welcomed the Chancellor of the Republic to Naboo. Obi-Wan, as a member of the team assigned to negotiate on behalf of the Naboo, put in a brief but necessary appearance.

Mace seemed to suppress a sigh. “Out in the garden, with young Skywalker. He is truly your Padawan, and a credit to the Order,” he said, a bit ruefully. “Perfect manners, perfect shields. He petitioned us to review our decision regarding the boy. And timed it, too, so that we’d barely stepped off the ship.”

Qui-Gon stared at him. “He… did.”

So far as Qui-Gon was aware, Mace and Yoda had landed yesterday evening. Aside from informing his Master of their arrival, Obi-Wan hadn’t mentioned anything like that.

Mace nodded, a touch amused—at Qui-Gon’s dumbfounded expression, no doubt. Qui-Gon picked up his jaw.

“He did,” Mace echoed. “Skywalker will be admitted to the Temple crèche as an Initiate.”

Much as Qui-Gon had been disturbed by the Council’s earlier decision to dismiss Anakin, he’d still held out some hope that he’d be able to take Anakin to Corellia, in the very worst case. The Corellian Temple had a sensible slave repatriation program; they trained Force-adept young ones too old for the crèche. The idea felt wrong, even if it was better than nothing. To Qui-Gon, though, it would have felt an awful lot like abandoning a youngling who trusted him, and hadn’t had the opportunity to come to trust anyone else. Qui-Gon was not prepared to make that same mistake twice in his lifetime.

But petitioning the Council… Qui-Gon hadn’t even considered it. If the thought had crossed his mind, he would have dismissed it as an effort doomed to failure. Yet Obi-Wan had done it, and succeeded. “What… did he say? To achieve this?”

Mace smiled crookedly at him. “He argued that the boy’s connection to the Force led him into high-risk situations, and made him a danger to himself. He also pointed out that you both faced a powerful Darksider—one that Yoda now acknowledges was indeed a Sith—and that if the Darksider knew of Anakin, the boy was in even greater danger of Falling, or being Turned. After all, you first encountered him on Tatooine.”

Qui-Gon found himself staring intently at Mace’s shoulder, and recovered with a grim nod. “Premier diplomat of the Order, and I could not make— _that_ —argument a mere half-ten ago.”

“Don’t blame yourself for that, Qui,” Mace sighed, and sank deeper into his seat. “The Council should be able to make such judgements without needing the obvious laid out before their faces. The fact that Force Sensitive children can become a danger to themselves and others without necessary training is major reason for the Search. It’s almost guaranteed to be worse for enslaved sentients. That child has a midichlorian count of over twenty thousand and a potential the likes of which we’ve never seen. I’m not sure what we were thinking.”

Qui-Gon shook his head. “Everything was so… damned important. There was no _time,_ ” he growled. “No time to _think._ ”

“You too?” Mace was eyeing him with a very curious expression. “And how do you feel now?”

“Drugged,” Qui-Gon said flatly.

The corner of Mace’s mouth twitched upwards. “Understandable. Qui-Gon, whatever happened here, that battle was a Shatterpoint. Up until that moment, the pressure had been building very slowly for a very long time, so gradually that we didn’t notice the Force was all but screaming in our heads.”

Qui-Gon nodded, movements slow and very slight, though even that was increasingly uncomfortable. For some reason, it took a bit longer to put the words together with their meaning in his head. “What does this Shatterpoint look like? Now?”

“Lighter. Less dangerous,” Mace admitted. “I don’t know what Obi-Wan’s Sight tells him, but he still feels uneasy. Unfortunately, I trust his intuition in this.”

Qui-Gon agreed. “As do I.”

Mace tilted his head to one side, considering. “And that’s another thing I ought to perhaps, apologise for. You were right, Qui-Gon; Obi-Wan is more than ready for Knighthood.”

Qui-Gon sighed—a shallow thing, in deference to the injury—trying to expel a bit of resigned irritation with it, since he couldn’t reach into the Force for reassurance. “That is… an apology owed to Obi-Wan, more than—to me, Mace.”

“Not entirely. There are members of the Council who would disagree with me. They might even go so far as to question your ability to judge your Padawan’s performance.”  

The only thing Qui-Gon found surprising about those words was that they still managed to leave a faint sting in their wake. He didn’t have the reserves to face that accusation at all. The resignation crept back in with a vengeance—and brought back exhaustion along with it; Qui-Gon’s limbs felt leaden again. He let his eyelids slip closed.

“Obi-Wan was ready a year ago,” he replied instead, keeping his tone studiously neutral.

Mace surprised him, however, by agreeing. “I think so, too. But you didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t realise we’d—have a rotation of more than four missions. Without pause,” Qui-Gon admitted wryly, arching his neck back into the pillows in search of some sort of relief for his mounting headache. “If I’d known… six months ago, that that was my last chance to tell him, before—the next set of assignments—” Qui-Gon sketched something that might have been a shrug on a better day. “Didn’t seem right, to do on the fly. We barely—had a ten of downtime.”

Mace nodded. “You’re our best team, and now you’re both out of commission. I’d like to yell at you for that, but I’ve already admitted the Council made a mistake.”

“Unofficially. The esteemed Council hasn’t admitted to anything,” Qui-Gon grinned, “so you may feel free—to yell at us in public. If it helps,”  he added, cracking an eye open to watch Mace’s expression.

“Not nearly as satisfying.”

Qui-Gon snorted softly, and immediately regretted it. “Deal with it.”

“Oh, I will,” Mace muttered, putting on a threatening scowl for show—if only for a few seconds. “However, a few nights ago your Master commed me to express— _in the strongest terms_ —that he disapproves of how we arranged the mission roster, or failed to, and that clearly we’ve been unable to do anything right since he’s stepped down from the Council seat.”

“Five years ago.”

“Quite.”

That, Qui-Gon thought, was very much like Dooku; it also seemed completely hysterical, but that was probably the drugs speaking, still.

“Mace. If you make me laugh, the Healer may hurt you.”

Mace sighed. “All right, I’ll leave you be.” He rose, and put the chair back against the wall, under the window—slowly and quietly, so that Qui-Gon’s eyes were drooping by the time he was done. If Mace said anything else, he didn’t catch it.

 

* * *

 

It took another two days after Mace and Yoda’s arrival for a representative number of the Council to convene in Theed. Mace tried not to go stir-crazy in that time, but he was beginning to wonder how Obi-Wan had managed to keep from scaling the walls in the last ten.

Mace had to correct himself very quickly—Obi-Wan wasn’t even _trying_ to stay sane. Any task he was offered, any task that he saw needed doing, Obi-Wan volunteered himself without hesitation. In the mornings Mace was sure to find Obi-Wan out in the gardens with Anakin, which made a certain kind of sense; Jinn had claimed the boy, so Obi-Wan had stepped in as lineage-brother. In effect, for a ten there hadn’t been anyone else to look after young Skywalker and teach him crècheling basics. But they weren’t alone here now, and Garen didn’t need too much convincing—no more than a glance, really—to step in and give Obi-Wan a chance to breathe. Anakin and Garen were fast friends, anyway; Mace figured he’d pay for encouraging that fiendish alliance later. For now, he’d given himself the task of keeping Kenobi in one piece while his Master was recovering.

If only Kenobi weren’t Jinn’s Padawan to the letter.

By midmeal on the same day Mace intercepted him before Terza did, plucking a datapad full of correspondence and trade proposals out of his hands just as the Healer turned the corner.

Obi-Wan had been very grateful, up until the moment he realised Mace wasn’t giving the datapad back to him. Worse, Mace had then gone out of his way to tell everyone, from Qui-Gon Jinn to Amidala’s Handmaidens, that Obi-Wan was not to overtax himself.

Armed with years of experience with Depa’s pleading Padawan eyes and clever, legalese-perfect argumentation, Mace thought he was well prepared to fend off any challenge. He’d thought wrong. It wasn’t precisely a war, but it was a silent duel. Eventually it resolved into a long-running game of _dejarik,_ two opponents locking eyes, moving a game piece, and silently daring the other to do something about it.

Mace won Obi-Wan over, finally, by asking about Anakin’s progress.

“I have no idea how to teach him,” Obi-Wan admitted. “Ability is not the problem—much of what he does is completely instinctive. I don’t know how to begin teaching him to recognise what he is _already_ doing. Force, I don’t even know how to begin to figure out what he does and doesn’t know.”

Mace remembered his first few months with Depa, remembered how he’d worried about much the same sort of things.

Panicked, actually. Gracelessly.

“There is no set curriculum for any student, Obi-Wan,” Mace said. “We all go through the same sort of anxiety with a new Padawan, so consider this a practice run for yourself.”

Obi-Wan didn’t exactly aim a sour glare in the Councilor’s direction, but Mace could tell he wanted to, and smiled.

“You find out what your student does and does not know as you both go along. I’m sure you’ve already learned something useful about Anakin’s needs, purely from observation.”

“Well he doesn’t read Basic,” Obi-Wan said heavily. “That is, he’s familiar with Aurebesh, but only Huttese words transliterated into Aurebesh. Anakin is more familiar with the Boonta-Huttese alphabet and dialect than the Nal-Hutta variant, but given where he’s grown up, there is no consistent writing system. He’s far better with schematics and diagrams.”

“I see you were one of Master Trask’s more conscientious students,” Mace remarked, impressed. “If nothing else, I’m sure we must have auditory aids with Huttese translations. Perhaps I might be of assistance.”

Obi-Wan’s expression momentarily fluctuated somewhere between surprise and disbelief. “Sorry?”

Mace’s smile turned sharp. “My Huttese could use some practice. And in case you’ve forgotten, Padawan Kenobi, I served several years on the Council of First Knowledge. I do have some inkling of how to see to it that younglings are given the appropriate tests to determine class placement.”

“Master,” Obi-Wan said, looking a bit abashed. He rallied admirably, though, adding, “That’s another thing—Anakin seemed a bit… nervous. About the testing.”

Mace felt his smile falter. “There is the benefit of most of the tests not being in the same format as we use for Initiate testing. It would be more of a conversation, an interview of sorts. Most likely, Anakin will initially be placed with crèchelings, anyway—mostly as a volunteer or assistant to one of our Crèchemasters. Much of the initial course of instruction will also be individualised. I’ve spoken to the Council of First Knowledge, they’ll send a direct request to the EduCorps for Knights and Masters who specialise in this form of instruction.”

Obi-Wan seemed impressed. “I know we have separate courses of study and scheduling for Senior Padawans who spend most of their time on missions—obviously—but I had no idea we did the same for Initiates.”

Mace nodded. “One of the difficulties involved in accepting older Initiates is providing standard education, given that most of the late-comers rarely come from areas with access to Core Standard curriculum. Not that great a difficulty, ultimately, and an argument sooner for convenience than a compelling reason not to take older students.”

“I take it, the EduCorps have similar programs in some of the underserved parts of the Republic.”

“Of course,” Mace said. “But our Senate stipend is more and more strained each year. Ten years ago it was barely sufficient, but same amount of money doesn’t go as far now; and then, of course, the Appropriations Committee is always looking for a reason to cut the Order’s stipend.” He snorted, a bitter sound he couldn’t hold back. “It’s an election year, Obi-Wan. Your Master—he brings back a nine-year-old boy strong in the Force and dire warnings of a Sith on Tatooine, of all places, just after the Council has spent a full day of building a legally airtight argument for why we should receive the exact same funding as we did the previous year and not a credit less.”

Obi-Wan glanced at him sidelong, but there was a understanding wryness to that look, as well. “With respect, Master, perhaps an independent committee should be entrusted with that sort of thing. With the participation of the Temple’s legal and accounting departments, certainly.”

Mace arched an eyebrow. But then, he’d already admitted that Obi-Wan had long been ready for Knighthood. Why did this carefully phrased suggestion surprise him? The sort of missions Obi-Wan had seen would have required some amount of delegating and outsourcing tasks to the right people.

Moreover, it was far from an unreasonable suggestion. True, Accounting handled the spending records and financial projections for the coming year, but the Head of the Order was the one who took the budgetary proposals before the Senate, after a full and careful discussion in Council meetings. It only took a moment’s thought, ultimately, to consider _how much more_ time the Council had been spending on budgetary meetings with every passing year. Ten years ago, getting the budget approved and the stipend cleared had been relatively simple. Now, they were lucky if the High Council wasn’t spending at least twenty hours every quarter on crafting a budgetary proposal _and_ an airtight defence for Mace to present to the Appropriations Committee.

“A good idea. The Council will take that suggestion under advisement, Padawan Kenobi,” Mace said, completely sincere.

Obi-Wan nodded absently, still preoccupied.

“Something is still troubling you,” Mace prompted, curious.

Obi-Wan didn’t answer immediately; when he did speak, it was clear that the words were chosen with great care. “In the crèche, Anakin would be considered dangerously uncontrolled. His Force signature is difficult enough to shield, but when he feels frustrated, anxious, or angry, the emotions can be… intense. Especially the anger, in some ways. But Anakin wasn’t raised by Jedi. What is normal for children who are raised outside the Order? For children raised as slaves?”

It shouldn’t have been a surprising question. It was, in fact, a very logical question, given Obi-Wan’s history with the Order. Mace remembered that Obi-Wan had more than one mark in his record regarding his anger. It had come up against him after Bandomeer—but Qui-Gon had held his own, stubbornly, and claimed Obi-Wan as his Padawan. The records came up again after Melida-Daan; but Obi-Wan had just ended a civil war, and negotiated a ceasefire—where did he belong _but_ in the Diplomatic Corps?

One night not long afterward Mace had pressed Qui-Gon over drinks, and the Master admitted that he’d given in to cynicism on Melida-Daan—even before he discovered a gravely injured Tahl. Qui-Gon had dismissed the civil war as a long-lost cause before he and Obi-Wan had even made landfall. Obi-Wan’s anger, he told Mace, stemmed from powerlessness in the face of injustice. And really, who was Qui-Gon to argue when he felt the same? Anger was good, anger was necessary; it was the spark that kept a negotiator going in the face of repeated failure. It was sometimes the only bulwark against feeling like a microscopic drop in a galactic bucket.

But that passion had caused Obi-Wan grief enough in-Temple. _Protective brother-Padawan,_ Mace thought. But that was as it should be.

“I would not say that there is a ‘normal’, so much as there is an expectation,” Mace answered carefully. “Jedi younglings are _expected_ to behave a certain way, but we are hardly all one person. We are a collective of different species, and some of us bring elements of our culture into our Temple life. I will admit, though, that our expectations have occasionally proved unfairly demanding.” Mace shrugged. “To be honest, Obi-Wan, I do not know how the Temple will welcome young Skywalker. The matter of his emotional control should be dealt with individually by the EduCorps Masters, perhaps a Mind Healer who specialises in working with children raised in slavery. But that does not mean that anyone will be able to foresee how other younglings and Masters will react to Anakin himself.”

Obi-Wan didn’t seem particularly surprised. “I suppose it’s a good thing he’ll be starting in the crèche, then. He may find it difficult to befriend more than a handful of Initiates his own age, but the younger ones are almost always welcoming.”

“Why the concern over Initiates close to Skywalker’s age?”

“He is already spoken for.” Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. “Anakin is nine years old, and he has already been Chosen by a Master.”

 _Ah._ “I hadn’t thought of that,” Mace admitted. “It wasn’t so contentious when I was an Initiate. I’m not sure why that’s changed so drastically in the last years.”

“Perhaps there are fewer Masters willing to take on Padawans?”

Mace mock-scowled at him. “Padawan Kenobi, if you’re not careful, I’ll assign you an Council Padawan position with the Council of First Knowledge for the next six months. Then _you_ can spend that time triple-checking the Order’s population stats and demerit records.” He sighed and dragged a hand over his face. “I may be joking, but it does feel like there are too many things to keep track of and our purpose has gone a bit by the wayside. The Council is meant to look out for the wellbeing of the Order, not play political games with the Senate.”

“Well, the Senate does have us at a disadvantage, there,” Obi-Wan pointed out. “They have over a hundred thousand Senators, many of whom do not contribute materially to Republic legislature, since they almost always vote together in largely predictable cohorts. They can form thousands of committees to argue over our budget or jurisdiction, but we have only one High Council.”

“So we will never have time for our own affairs again unless we make the time,”  Mace agreed with a sour expression, “I do hate it when trite old wisdoms come back to bite.”

Obi-Wan’s response sounded suspiciously like a stifled snort.

He was more at ease around Mace after that, which was gratifying. Equally gratifying was the fact that Anakin was no longer avoiding him outright—perhaps in response to the fact that Obi-Wan’s first reaction was no longer to pull up his shields tight and his spine straight.

Mace was right, as it turned out: his Huttese definitely needed the practice, and some of the slang was a few years out of date. But it was worth the light in Anakin’s eyes at finding someone outside of Obi-Wan who was equally fluent.

That was all very well, until the Councilors arrived. Obi-Wan’s shields were back at durasteel strength, and though he stood on the landing platform to welcome them, Mace wondered if he shouldn’t surreptitiously comm Terza and ask her to get him out of there somehow.

The hangar bay had been cleaned and reopened, and would welcome the four Councilors for expediency’s sake. But Mace was just as well aware of the impressions of Darkness that Obi-Wan had willingly to put his back to. Even Anakin had given the blast doors a concerned glance before Obi-Wan blocked his line of sight and put his hands on Anakin’s shoulders—a calculated mirror of Qui-Gon’s gesture in the Council chambers not so long ago.

Mace watched their byplay and quietly marveled at it. Obi-Wan would not have to present his petition to the full Council, not when Mace and Yoda were both prepared to reopen the issue, but the message he was sending was far from subtle.

At Mace’s side, Yoda grumbled quietly. “Qui-Gon’s defiance, I sense in him. Need that, he does not.”

 _You chose his Master for him,_ Mace thought, but refrained from commenting. In the end, he might be pressed to admit that for all his meddling, Yoda had chosen well, and that would undermine the entire argument.

Obi-Wan braved the Councilors’ obvious disapproval—almost a blunt dismissal—quite well, all told, but there were signs of obvious strain around his eyes. It suddenly occurred to Mace to wonder if Obi-Wan slept for anything less total exhaustion.

Thankfully, Garen was in the hangar bay—and arguing with a battered-looking R2 unit, apparently. That drew Anakin the moment he sensed he could escape the awkward gathering. A moment later, Mace dismissed Obi-Wan. He had faith, at least, that Garen would find a way to keep Obi-Wan occupied, now that the Council members had landed and had been appropriately received.

Everything had its own time, and the matter of the Sith had to be addressed first.

 

* * *

 

The catwalks of Naboo’s generator complex were wide and tiled in inky black, harshly lit by the plasma flows. Specially trained techs maintained the powerplant; the tech guiding Mace and Yoda through the complex had been rather solemn, and walked softly along the paths, almost like a man at a ritual.

It perpetually intrigued Mace how many traditions and superstitions followed civilisations through technological progress. The Theed generator, for example, was designed with seven ray-shields between the outside world and the melting pit—a symbolic separation between the outer world and Chaos. As though Chaos were something that could be chained, or confined, Mace mused, given the inevitable heat-death of an ever-expanding universe.

The ray-shields were currently inactive, but they would have given no respite from the discordant echoes in the Force anyway. It was as if Chaos had been woven into the air, making it all too easy to track the fight as it had progressed from hangar to melting pit. Pain, anger and the sense of violent death would likely mar the Force-sense in this space for years to come.

Standing in the generator complex again, surrounded by five other Jedi, Mace found he was finally able to put enough distance between himself and the feel of the place. Nearly all signs of the fight had gone—there was lightsaber scoring on the floor here and there, still—but no blood, no debris. It was a welcome distraction from the fact his fellow Council members still held doubts about whether the warrior Jinn and Kenobi had faced was a Sith.

Mace edged back from the argument, eying the pit. “Have you been able to recover the corpse?” he asked the tech.

The man shook his head. “No. There is no sign of it. When we got here, the refinery was active—but the Federation droids had shut it down when they arrived. I don’t understand—the shields should not have been active at all. The refinery was activated only after the wounded had been moved.”

Mace raised an eyebrow, and glanced over at Master Yoda, who had stopped beside the exact spot Qui-Gon had fallen. The Grandmaster was staring down at the floor as though there were still some answers to be found in the black tile. “I see. You need not stay here,” he added quietly. “We’ll be careful.”

The tech shot him a grateful glance and retreated, past the shields. Mace sighed, and slowly moved to join the ancient Master. “From the sound of things, the Sith did not work alone,” he said quietly.

“So sure are you, that a Sith, this was?” Yoda asked mildly.

Mace frowned. “You cannot still have doubts. I have never felt anything like this; have you?”

Yoda shook his head slowly, with a discontented grumble.

Ki-Adi took up the argument again immediately. “There is simply no evidence to support such an assertion. Where would such knowledge come from?”

“Korriban, Dxun, any of the old Temples where our researchers have barely scratched the surface.” Depa answered before Mace could—and thank the Force, or his words might well have been unnecessarily sharp. “There is equally little evidence to say that the Sith have not formed enclaves of their own in some of the less-explored corners of the galaxy.”

“To ignore the existence of something simply because we have not sensed it is foolhardy,” Mace added. “Regardless of whether this was a Sith, it was nonetheless a Darksider, and a trained one at that. Saesee, what do you sense?”

“Pain,” the Iktochi Master answered immediately, “and anger.” He tilted his head. “Not just the warrior’s.”

“Can you say that these emotions were used in a directed manner, to draw strength from the Force and attack?”

“With certainty, though that does not necessarily indicate, beyond reasonable doubt, that we are dealing with a Sith. A trained Darksider, but maybe no more than that. Padawan Kenobi’s emotions have also left quite a strong mark here. Anger and desperation fueled his attack.”

“He watched this warrior cut down his Master,” Mace interjected, unsettled by the direction the Master’s criticism was taking. “That should have been a mortal blow, and yet—not only did Obi-Wan defeat him, he managed to keep Qui-Gon alive long enough for Terza to find them.”

Saesee inclined his head in acknowledgement. “I will not say that these emotions were inappropriate to the moment. However, I maintain that I have concerns with respect to the young man’s emotional control, particularly in light of events that led, on two separate occasions, to Kenobi’s expulsion or voluntary withdrawal from the Order. He was placed on probation as a consequence of the latter.”

“Seconded,” Ki-Adi echoed. “Padawan Kenobi’s record raises some questions for me as well.”

Yoda’s ears twitched. And yet, Mace noted, the Grandmaster remained conspicuously silent. “And I made the determination that Obi-Wan had performed well enough to terminate his probationary period,” Mace said. “However, I am willing to offer Padawan Kenobi training in the basics of Vapaad, if that will set this Council at ease. It would certainly be of benefit to Obi-Wan.”

Saesee and Ki-Adi exchanged startled looks—surprised, perhaps, by Mace’s rare show of faith in a promising young Padawan, he supposed. Mace felt suddenly discomfited by it. True, old records of early assignment to the Service Corps and probations had legitimate weight in the judgement of a Padawan’s qualifications for Knighthood. But in this case—Mace wasn’t even certain he _didn’t_ hold a bias in Kenobi’s favour.

It was Plo who responded, pulling Mace’s attention back to the present. “You are the best judge of that, Master Windu, as the Master of your own Form. I agree, however, that Padawan Kenobi would benefit from an exploration of his emotional state, with a Mind Healer who has experience handling traumatic missions. What Mind Healer has experience with _this_ sort of trauma, I cannot say,” the Kel Dor added, with a wry note in his words, if not perfectly translated through his mask.

Mace inclined his head in thanks. “We should ask the Shadows if there is anything they can tell us about this warrior—and anything they can discover about his training.” The Force seemed to hint that wasn’t very likely, but it was worth making the attempt. “I will offer additional lessons to Padawan Kenobi.”

There was one more thing to propose, and Mace stopped to draw a breath. This was not going to be a light subject.

“For the moment, I am inclined to consider him otherwise prepared for Knighthood. Such a test as what he faced here is not often encountered in a Chamber of Trial. If there are no immediate objections to this, I would like to submit this suggested course of action for consideration by the full Council.”

Plo tilted his head thoughtfully. “I have no objection to this action.”

“No objection from me,” Depa echoed.

Saesee’s expression turned inward. “I… abstain from declaring my final decision, but support offering it up for discussion before the full Council on Coruscant.”

Ki-Adi hesitated only a half-second. “Seconded,” he said quietly.

That left only Yoda’s response. Mace looked to him, expectant.

For a long moment, the grandmaster said nothing. Then he seemed to deflate slightly. “Discuss this, we will, at the next Council session,” the Grandmaster said. “Closed, this meeting is now, yes? Too old, I am, for such long nights.”

Ki-Adi, Saesee, Plo, and Depa all bowed and filed out of the refinery, back to the hangar, but Mace hung back, waiting for the ancient Master to move. Yoda was very obviously preoccupied with something, and Mace was curious. Frankly, he couldn’t think of much that would distract the Grandmaster quite so thoroughly.

“Too old, Master?” Mace asked, amused, and not believing that excuse for one second.

Yoda seemed preoccupied, focused on something outside the realm of vision. Presently, though he shook himself off with a dissatisfied grumble. “Always two, there are; no more, no less,” he said, answering nothing in particular. “A Master, and an Apprentice.”

Mace had the distinct feeling that Yoda was avoiding giving him a straight answer. Typical, actually. “But which was destroyed? The Master, or the Apprentice?”

_And which had cleaned up the mess?_

Yoda did not grace that question with an answer either. Instead, Mace learned exactly what had had the old Master so absorbed.

“Invited us to tea, the Chancellor has. Wish to know, he does, the results of our investigation. Concerned, he is, of the threat to Naboo.”

Mace didn’t quite roll his eyes. “Is he. This warrior may have been following Amidala, but I rather doubt he had any real interest in Naboo.”

“What interest do the Sith have in Amidala?” the old troll countered sharply. “Strange business, this is, very strange.”

Mace sighed. “What do we tell the Chancellor, then?”

“If Sith it was, then Jedi business, this investigation is. Tell nothing, mention nothing of Sith. Assure the Chancellor, we must, that his planet is not in danger. Discover of what consequence Naboo is to the Sith ourselves, we _also_ must,” Yoda added, with an emphatic tap of his gimer stick.

“And the other?” Mace wondered if the Naboo recovery crew had had a mind to at least check for traces of tampering with the controls, but he doubted they would have found anything.

“Know that, I do not,” the ancient Master admitted. “The security tapes, we have seen. No sign was there, of this—other. Make mention of _that_ to the Chancellor, we certainly will not.”

“Of course not,” Mace echoed softly.

 

* * *

 

 

The gardens were at their best in the evening stillness. They had a beautiful western view: over the waterfall, across the skywalk to the watchtower, and beyond it to the trees and the brilliant sunset. Obi-Wan watched as the sun sank behind the tower, watched its windows light up. The warmth of molten copper sunlight was nearly a tangible weight on his skin; the breeze carried scents of bright blossoms and the crisp nighttime cool. Mace and Terza both had mentioned something about a rest period, and Obi-Wan was almost tempted to ask if he might spend it here, on Naboo. Maybe even broker some fresh trade deals for the planet, finish crafting the lawsuit against the Trade Federation.

 _Almost_ tempted. Obi-Wan could already see the disapproving glare it would net him from both Mace and Terza. He had no doubt that once Mace was through with him, Terza would step in to remind him—in excruciating detail—of all the dangers of stress and overwork in his condition. Again. Much as Obi-Wan was reluctant to admit it, that message had been sharply brought home earlier today. All he’d done was stand at parade rest and face down three disapproving Councilors while keeping his hands from tightening painfully on Anakin’s shoulders. That had left him exhausted for the next hour—thank the Force for Garen and Artoo, and for Naboo starfighter schematics.

No, Obi-Wan decided, it was best not to say anything at all. He needed to fly low, skirt the Council’s sensors. At least Master Windu had been merciful.

That was to say, mostly merciful: aside from taking Healer Terza’s side, and appearing at Obi-Wan’s elbow whenever he so much as remembered that Mace Windu was planetside.

“Padawan Kenobi. No, don’t get up,” Master Windu forestalled him with a light press of fingertips to Obi-Wan’s shoulder, and settled down on the steps beside him instead. “I have… there is a matter I would like to discuss with you, concerning your Knighthood.”

Obi-Wan felt his spine stiffen, and couldn’t do a thing to hide the tension that shot through him at that. “Yes, Master,” he said, in as neutral a tone as he could manage. He was pleased that his voice sounded even enough to his own ears, at least.

Mace eyed him speculatively for a fraction of a moment, then deliberately dropped his gaze and looked out to the garden. He looked less like the Master who’d been giving Obi-Wan tips on how to teach Anakin, now, and more like the Head of the Order Obi-Wan was used to seeing.

“It is the Council’s responsibility to act in the Padawan’s best interests. There’s a reason the Council determines when a Padawan is ready for their Trials: sending someone ill-prepared into a Chamber of Trial risks their life.”

Obi-Wan filled in the momentary pause with an understanding nod, and Mace’s tight bearing eased, just a little. He turned, catching Obi-Wan’s gaze again.

“I can think of no Trial that would even begin to compare to what you faced in that battle, Obi-Wan. You defeated a trained Darksider, perhaps the first Sith seen in a millennium. You overcame an impossible position. The Council is prepared to consider this mission as a substitute for your Trials, Padawan Kenobi.”

The silence almost rang. Obi-Wan stared at the Head of the Council, bewildered, and wondered if he’d imagined the last few moments. Although, this really didn’t fit with sort of bizarre hallucination his mind might usually throw at him.

“… Master?”

“There are a few conditions,” Mace amended.

“Ah.” That, at least, sounded a little more normal to Obi-Wan. Nothing came down from the Council without a catch, after all.

“First, you are on mandatory leave for the next six months.”

Grounded, Obi-Wan decided. Grounded was fine. Maybe it would give him some time to help Qui-Gon through his recovery, too, he thought wistfully. He’d probably find a way to get himself assigned to some Padawan classes or crèche duty, as well.

“Second,” and here Mace actually hesitated, “I believe you would benefit from some additional lessons on managing and making use of your anger. To that end… I am offering you lessons on the basics and theory of Vapaad.”

Obi-Wan went very still, his mind unhelpfully blank—still having trouble processing the odd alignment of a Knighthood, a six month rest period, and now completely unable to handle ‘Vapaad training with Master Windu’. If that was meant to be the catch in what felt like a massive windfall, it was also a pleasant kind of catch—the promise of a grueling challenge in the midst of six months of practice in _sitting still._

Diplomatic training was probably the only thing that saved Obi-Wan from making a complete fool of himself, completely baffled and bouncing between disbelief and a low, thrumming excitement. “It would be an honour, Master Windu.”

Mace actually smiled. “Congratulations, Knight Kenobi.”

It was only as Mace rose to leave that Obi-Wan’s brain came back online. “Master Windu?”

The Councilor paused, and looked back at Obi-Wan in askance.

“Could I—that is, would it be possible to postpone the ceremony until—” He broke off, uncertain.

“Until your Master can be present?” Mace nodded, understanding. “Of course.” Then, with another close look at Obi-Wan, Mace sighed and let the Councilor’s mask slip away again. “Go get some rest, Obi-Wan. You need it.”

“Yes, Master,” Obi-Wan replied, again mostly by rote.

He lingered a few minutes more, though, after Mace left, basking in what remained of the sun’s rays.

Finally Obi-Wan sighed, picking himself up from the stair he’d been sitting on. The fatigue was still a background hum, even after two weeks’ rest, but he had no plans to sleep out in the gardens, lovely as that might be. The creeping shadow of the trees had already reached him, and it was almost uncomfortably cooler than the sunlit ground had been. It was time to check on Anakin, make sure Garen had brought him back. The two were thick as thieves already, which could become cause for some concern.

Obi-Wan made his way along the arcade back to the makeshift infirmary. It was blessedly quiet, not a hint of anyone around. In truth aside from a few private rooms reserved for the seriously injured, the infirmary had been all but dismantled without trace. With all said and done, it appeared that this was the more remote and sparsely frequented wing of the palace, gardens notwithstanding.

Obi-Wan was grateful for the peace and privacy. He’d brushed off his exhaustion at first, but the last ten day had brought home the point eventually: even passive interaction with more than a handful of people ran down his reserves very quickly. Anakin wasn’t exactly easy to keep up with, and most of Obi-Wan’s energy went into that, but that was at least an enjoyable expenditure. Besides, the Handmaidens had been happy to assist, and now Garen was pitching in; that gave Anakin many different things to do and learn from, and Obi-Wan—enough time to recuperate. Obi-Wan had also found that during their guided meditation sessions, Anakin occasionally sent back tendrils of energy, and all unconsciously at that. It was probably too early to discuss directed energy transfer with the boy, but Anakin was a sponge, and Obi-Wan had no doubt that the topic would come up soon.

At this hour, in a remote corner of Theed palace, the last thing Obi-Wan expected was to run into Chancellor Palpatine. He caught sight of the man’s back, at first, and straightened into a conditioned formal pose, just in case. Then he realised the Chancellor was hovering near Qui-Gon’s door, as though debating whether to knock or leave.

 _Go away,_ Obi-Wan thought, smothering a groan. _Please go._

“Ah, Padawan Kenobi!”

No such luck.

“Chancellor,” Obi-Wan greeted him with a respectful bow. “Congratulations on your election.”

“We are indebted to you for your bravery, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” the Chancellor said, smiling warmly. “You and your Master. How is Master Jinn?”

“Recovering,” he said neutrally.

“My most sincere condolences,” the Chancellor said quietly, with a faint bow and a regretful pinch to his smile, a wide-open, earnest look in his eyes.

Palpatine was the perfect politician, Obi-Wan thought, while replying with hollow thanks. Palpatine had never spoken to Qui-Gon Jinn beyond a polite greeting, nor even sat across the negotiation table from him. His concern was a necessary political ploy, and the earnestness with which it was delivered was either exceptionally well-acted or amazingly self-convinced.

Palpatine had turned, and Obi-Wan, not having been dismissed with any clear signal, awkwardly fell into step beside him.

“What a curious thing,” Palpatine remarked after a moment, “that there should have been a Zabrak involved in all this. Do you suppose the Federation hired a mercenary?”

Obi-Wan glanced sideways at him, wondering how much the man knew of the ‘assassin’. A mercenary with lightsabers was a rare enough thing, but a Darksider—on the Federation’s payroll, at that—it seemed outlandish. “I’m afraid I cannot say. There will have to be an investigation, of course,” Obi-Wan replied quietly.

“Oh, I’m quite sure the Trade Federation will demand it,” Palpatine said, a strange smile on his face. “Lott Dod was most disturbed to learn of the presence of his company’s ships in Naboo space.”

There was an air of—something, to his words—whether sarcasm or cynicism, Obi-Wan could not say.

“I should be very much interested to know, however, what the Jedi think of this assassin,” the Chancellor added, quite solemn. “Use of such a weapon outside your Order is rare, is it not?”

Now there was a turn that caught Obi-Wan off guard. “Rare, but not unheard of,” he replied smoothly. Even that wasn’t quite a lie—there was always Xanatos du Crion for an example.

Thankfully, the Chancellor did not push the matter. “Hmm. Very curious, all the same.”

“Indeed.”

“I am given to understand that while you faced the enemy here, that young boy—Skywalker—flew a starfighter into the dogfight and fired the decisive shot,” Palpatine said. “Naboo owes him thanks as well.”

Obi-Wan was counting steps, and the part of his mind occupied with figuring out how to extricate himself from this conversation was beginning to divert power from other systems.

“What a remarkable boy,” the Chancellor continued, “to pilot a starfighter into pitched battle, destroy the Federation control ship, and live to tell of it. Such a gift must be honed, and trained, surely. Will the Jedi offer young Skywalker a place in their ranks?”

 _The Council will decide…_ Obi-Wan held back a shiver with a will. “That is not for me to say, Chancellor,” he replied instead.

Palpatine regarded him for a long moment. “A pity,” he said finally, turning back to the long corridor again. “I should have liked to know what would become of him. In any case, he will always have the support of the Office of the Chancellor. We shall watch his career with _great_ interest.”

Obi-Wan felt his eye twitch. _Career,_ he thought, and was almost surprised at how snide it turned out to be.

Thankfully, at that point Palpatine had excused himself, and bid Obi-Wan good night most graciously. Obi-Wan turned and slowly walked back to Qui-Gon’s room with a bitter taste in his mouth, wishing Valorum were still in office. At least Valorum was enough of a personal friend that finding him hovering outside Qui-Gon’s door would not have felt so much like the breach of some unspoken boundary.

 _Those corruption charges could not have been real,_ Obi-Wan added thoughtfully. He paused at Qui-Gon’s door and glanced back down the hall after the former Senator of Naboo, and frowned. Without proof, his conviction was worth nothing.

Without proof, his _bad feeling_ about Palpatine was just that. It was hardly the first time he’d met a politician grievously misinformed on the Jedi way of life. It also wasn’t the first time he’d met a person eager to feather their cap with the achievements of some young prodigy—not by far. It was simply a shame that the newly-elected Chancellor of the Republic should fall into both categories.

Although, maybe, Obi-Wan thought with a regretful sigh, things would look better in the morning.

 

* * *

 

Qui-Gon woke to a comforting sort of stillness. The sort of calm that told him he was safe; that he was not alone, but with someone he trusted implicitly. 

It was early yet, but Obi-Wan would already be up by now and out in the gardens with Anakin, teaching him. At least, that was the pattern Qui-Gon had observed, piecewise, in his nearly-random periods of awakening. Today’s pattern, apparently, was slated to be something different. 

Qui-Gon turned his head to the cot that Obi-Wan and Anakin shared, and found that it was empty, so Anakin, at any rate, was already up and about. But Obi-Wan was on his left, in a chair pulled close to the biobed, slumped forward with his head resting on his arms near Qui-Gon’s shoulder. Qui-Gon couldn’t quite resist making the attempt at running gentle fingers through his Padawan’s soft, ginger hair. It was awkward, given that he was trying to reach across with his right arm. The angle was all wrong, and every motion required a frustrating amount of effort, but as far as Qui-Gon was concerned, it was worth the trouble. 

Obi-Wan stirred and mumbled sleepily, coming awake in stages—Qui-Gon hadn’t had the joy of watching that prolonged struggle since his Padawan turned sixteen. 

No, Qui-Gon thought, frowning just a little. It had been a rare thing even then, after their mission to Mandalore. They’d been given a short reprieve afterwards—‘wilderness training’. For them, that was really more of a holiday, especially after months of muddy ditches and blasterfire. They’d slept through most of it, on sun-warmed rocks, under a sun tipping closer and closer to lower solstice, the angle of it leaving them mostly unburnt. Easily the last time they’d had the opportunity to let go of decorum, be utterly hedonistic and revel in it. 

Obi-Wan frowned back at him, instantly more alert. “Master?” 

Qui-Gon shook his head gently. “You’ll get a crick in your neck like that.”

An odd expression flickered over Obi-Wan’s face at that, something that might have been amusement or disbelief, or both at once. “You woke me up to save me from a pain in the neck,” he said, looking for all the world like he was expecting Qui-Gon to have some ulterior motive. Or maybe he was plotting a wicked quip about his Master being a pain in the neck, which would be thoroughly in character. 

In some sense, though, Qui-Gon did have an ulterior motive. Days ago, Obi-Wan had been here when he first woke up, and Qui-Gon had somehow convinced his Padawan to curl up at his side for a time. All three of them—Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan and Anakin—had eventually drifted off to sleep. He wanted that closeness again, now; he craved that comfort—and suddenly had no idea how to ask for it. Tentatively, Qui-Gon turned his hand palm up. “… Come here?” 

Obi-Wan blinked, as if caught off-guard by the request, but otherwise didn’t seem surprised or displeased. He rose, stretched subtly, then gently helped Qui-Gon shift a little before settling to his left. 

It was an immense relief. Their bond seemed strangely muffled, or faded—at least on Qui-Gon’s end. It wasn’t until he felt the warmth of his Padawan next to him that he was able to convince himself Obi-Wan was truly  _ there.  _ He relaxed slowly, resting his head against Obi-Wan’s shoulder, and let himself sink into the rightness of having him near for long, silent moments. 

The windows of Qui-Gon’s room caught more light in the morning hours than in the evening, but it was easy on the eyes all hours of the day—not like fluorescent lights in the Halls of Healing. Qui-Gon knew Terza had plans to move him, and it would likely be soon. He half-dreaded the coming journey, but there was no help for it—not when the Naboo simply did not have the facilities they needed. A few days’ hyperspace travel was simply the lesser of two evils. 

In the last few days, Terza had been fairly tight-lipped about Qui-Gon’s prognosis, if cautiously optimistic. She’d even reduced the dose of painkillers—slightly, but enough that he could stay awake for longer periods, and find where he’d misplaced this thought or that memory or that name. Still, from conversations with the Healer when Obi-Wan was not in earshot, Qui-Gon had gleaned that his current situation was a temporary one, and that there were perhaps a several surgeries and an extensive period of recovery in his future. Terza was also optimistic on that score, pleased with a new trial medical treatment to which Qui-Gon apparently owed his life. 

_ And to Obi-Wan, _ Qui-Gon would add mentally each time. Qui-Gon really had been foolish, to go so far as to try unwinding their bond during the fight. But Qui-Gon also remembered how shockingly faint their bond had seemed, immediately after the battle. Finding his way back had been nearly impossible. The sense of Obi-Wan in his mind, that warm, brilliant presence, had only returned as he felt his Padawan’s arms around him, lifting him from the cold floor. But the knowledge that Obi-Wan would be able to feel him fade away, that had been… 

Unconscionable.  _ Unbearable, _ bordering on cruel. Better him than Obi-Wan on any day— _ always _ —but, Force and gods, not like this. 

Qui-Gon sighed, and squeezed Obi-Wan’s hand gently. “Terza tells me you broke yourself in some more than usually creative way. How do you feel?” 

Although, really, Mace had been the messenger, but his Padawan didn’t need to know that—if he didn’t already. Mace hadn’t exactly been subtle:  _ Tell your Padawan to stop running himself into the ground, old man, _ he’d said. Apparently keeping up with Anakin was a consuming challenge that didn’t mix well with finding new trade partners for the Naboo, drafting rewrites of Theed’s budget to cover the cost of damages caused by the blockade, or putting together a legal bid for restitution from the Trade Federation. Or with the arrival of Councilors and the Chancellor, for that matter, and all the attendant formalities that ever fell to a Jedi diplomat. 

Obi-Wan’s smile was small and wry. “Like the week after the Chandrillan flu epidemic.” 

In other words, woozy, underweight, and untethered at the best of times, but restless and itching to crawl out of one’s skin. Qui-Gon grimaced, remembering that week very well himself. In contrast, he didn’t remember much of the week before it at all. “You should still be resting,” he said, a gentle reproach in the words that had always worked best on his Padawan. 

Obi-Wan shrugged—gently, barely a pressure against Qui-Gon’s temple. “Can’t. The Queen officially welcomed Chancellor Palpatine to Naboo yesterday, and members of the Council are present.” 

_ Must put on a brave front, _ Qui-Gon interpreted, and shook his head minutely. Obi-Wan had always been uncomfortable facing the Council in any form, and Qui-Gon couldn’t blame him for it. He was tempted to think that the Council might grant Obi-Wan a bit of latitude here, given that they’d almost died on this mission. But Qui-Gon couldn’t say, in good conscience, that any sign of emotional breakdown  _ wouldn’t _ be counted against his Padawan. 

Qui-Gon trusted him with the politicians, at least. They’d already proven themselves in Padmé’s eyes, but Palpatine was a new player, and several dozen undefined variables in a Senator’s ornate robes. 

“Lovely,” Qui-Gon offered mildly, thinking nothing of the sort. 

“Oh yes,” Obi-Wan agreed, “lovely is the word. Chancellor Palpatine took one look at Anakin and promised to watch his career with  _ great _ interest.” 

Qui-Gon blinked, both a little amused and taken aback by the palpable wave of dislike his Padawan was broadcasting. He angled his head carefully to glance up, curious. “I’m sorry?” 

“ _ Career, _ ” Obi-Wan all but snarled. “As if being Jedi were no more than a simple, voluntary, paid  _ job. _ Like we’re mercenaries, or something.” 

Qui-Gon didn’t laugh, but only just. “Perhaps he was thinking of the exceptional piloting skills that boy has, hm? I certainly didn’t tell him Anakin was to be a Jedi.” 

Obi-Wan shot him a suspicious glance. “Perhaps,” he allowed. “What’s your opinion on our new Chancellor, if it’s not a secret?” 

Qui-Gon paused, filing through any memory he might have had of working with Palpatine of Naboo, but even with the drugs slowing him down a little, there wasn’t much to find. “I’m not sure, Obi-Wan. I don’t have much experience with him directly, which is perhaps an indication in itself. The Chommel Sector is a fairly quiet place, but you’ll find Palpatine’s name on a number of different trade agreements and budgetary resolutions.” 

Obi-Wan arched a single skeptical eyebrow. “So he’s been making friends, then.” 

“Mm.” Qui-Gon frowned; his mind, apparently exhausted with the sorting exercise, seemed to draw nearly blank. “Chiefly with the Trade Federation, I should think. I remember a mission to a forest moon—Alaris Prime, was it…?” 

Obi-Wan nodded. “Wookiee colony.” At Qui-Gon’s curious look, he smiled and explained, “Master Piell’s seminar on tactics, specifically the module on making use of your surroundings in creative ways. Gundarks, Master?  _ Honestly. _ ” 

Qui-Gon snickered. “At least I didn’t fall into the nest myself.” 

Obi-Wan didn’t quite roll his eyes at him. “So what did Palpatine have to do with the Wookiee colony?” 

“Nothing,” Qui-Gon replied, “he was simply an observer at the meeting. I found that very odd. Caught my attention.” 

Obi-Wan hummed, a quiet, thoughtful sound. “And what did the Trade Federation want with Alaris Prime?”

Qui-Gon paused for a moment, trying to recapture the memory before it slipped away again. “Mining rights on a forest moon that had originally and legally been claimed by Kashyyyk. The Federation had no legal standing for what they were asking.”

“And Palpatine had no input?” 

Qui-Gon huffed and shifted around slightly, the better to curl in against his Padawan’s shoulder. “None. He is—very helpful, as I understand it. Presents himself as a mentor to younger politicians. Makes lots of friends and somehow manages to keep them all.”

“Wouldn’t put it past him to make strategic appearances at various meetings, then, to show some kind of ‘support’.” Obi-Wan sighed, his temple resting against the crown of Qui-Gon’s head. “Wonder what benefit he sees in befriending a Jedi Initiate.”

Qui-Gon tensed, just a little. “Can’t think of any good reason.” Obi-Wan’s arm tightened slightly around Qui-Gon’s shoulders, grounding and soothing him, and Qui-Gon let himself melt back into the embrace. “I understand you petitioned for him to be accepted into the crèche,” Qui-Gon added, suddenly remembering that he’d never thanked Obi-Wan for that. 

“Mm. And asked Padmé to free his mother.” 

Qui-Gon froze, then laughed softly. “Well, that should be interesting.” 

Obi-Wan peered down at him with a confused expression. “What exactly?” 

“I offered to come back for her. For Shmi. Not sure she believed me.” Qui-Gon raised one shoulder in a faint sort of shrug. “I commed Dex when we made it back to Coruscant, asked him to send her something she could use, maybe sell pieces of, for herself.”

“Oh, good. I don’t suppose you could have mentioned that, earlier?” 

Qui-Gon sighed. “There’s a great deal I should have spoken of much sooner,” he said. “Like your Knighthood.”

“The Council has agreed to consider this mission an acceptable substitute for my trials—"

The words shattered the contentment in the air, and Qui-Gon shifted around awkwardly to raise wide eyes up to his Padawan’s face. Obi-Wan was still speaking, but he couldn't hear a word of it, disbelief drowning out the words and warring with sharp bitterness. 

“Substitute,” Qui-Gon whispered, dumbfounded, his shoulder coming to rest awkwardly against the back of the biobed. 

“Master?”

“I didn't realise the practical equivalent of a Lothal Temple Trial was merely a  _ substitute, _ ” he said. 

Obi-Wan’s features shifted into a brief confused frown. “The Lothal Temple,” he repeated. “The Chamber of Trial that eats people.” 

“That one.” It had earned itself the moniker of  _ ‘Murder Chamber’ _ long before Qui-Gon’s Trials. 

Obi-Wan stared at him blankly for a long moment. “Not a pleasant thought,” he said at last. 

Qui-Gon shook his head, inexplicably deeply saddened. “No, it’s not.”

“If anything, that thing tried to eat  _ you, _ Master. Perhaps they were your Trials, instead.”

He huffed a small, pained noise of agreement, and raised a hand to rub gently at his temples. “Certainly felt like it.”

“Discovered you were a bit tough to chew, though.”

Qui-Gon dropped his hand and blinked owlishly at Obi-Wan for a moment. Then he grinned. “Brat,” he said, with quiet affection. 

“As you say, Master,” Obi-Wan returned, both facetious and self-deprecating, his eyes dancing with mischief, “I still have much to learn.” 

The impish tone had rather the reverse effect to the one Obi-Wan had, without doubt, intended. Rather, the self-deprecation reminded Qui-Gon rather sharply that his Padawan was prone to constantly underestimating his own abilities. What put him in mind of it now, Qui-Gon could not say; perhaps it was Obi-Wan’s reaction to his Knighting that he found concerning. He might’ve expected to see some sort of well-deserved pride in the accomplishment, and that was conspicuously absent. 

“No,” Qui-Gon said softly, “nothing more that I could teach you; not when you’ve been acting full partner to me for over a year, anyway.” 

Qui-Gon couldn’t say what he’d expected, but certainly not the complete stillness that greeted his words. When he finally looked up, his heart clenched at the look of faint surprise on his—former—Padawan’s face. Qui-Gon sighed and shifted—with Obi-Wan’s gentle assistance, yet again—until he was propped upright a little higher against the too-flat pillows. 

“Obi-Wan, for the last year you have been taking on the responsibilities of a Knight in a paired team. The Council, as you might have noticed, was prone to ascribing the success of our missions to me, but I could not have managed without your help. Not once, Obi-Wan,” he repeated, catching his Padawan’s gaze and holding it, sending his gratitude and pride along their bond. “Now it is time for you to show them what you have learned, and build a reputation of your own.” 

Obi-Wan stared a moment longer before nodding—accepting his Master’s assessment, if not, perhaps, entirely believing it. “I understand, Master.”

“Qui-Gon,” he corrected gently. “Not your Master anymore, Knight Kenobi.” 

“Qui-Gon,” Obi-Wan dipped his head with a shy smile. 

With a fond smile of his own, Qui-Gon sighed and leaned in to rest his head against his Padawan’s shoulder. Obi-wan settled in close once again, somehow managing to encircle Qui-Gon in his arms. 

For the first time in days, exhaustion wasn’t about to claim him, and Qui-Gon savoured the moment. He wouldn’t get many moments such as this in the coming future, not if Obi-Wan was already all but Knighted. Qui-Gon did his best to breathe through the pinch in his chest, knowing it wasn’t the injury at all. “I suppose the fact that the Council is here means that we will have to depart soon?” 

“In a couple days. The Naboo are holding a parade for us,” Obi-Wan said, as an afterthought. 

Qui-Gon sighed, hoping it didn’t sound quite as plaintive to Obi-Wan as it did to his ears. “How embarrassing,” he muttered. 

Obi-Wan simply chuckled and rested his head against Qui-Gon’s, holding onto him gently. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter would not frkn _move._ Pain in the arse. Some of these scenes were written _over a year ago,_ I shit you not. Tune in on the chapter after next, you'll find scenes that were written at the start of _last year's nano._
> 
> Next chapter will be a bit of an epilogue for this part. I think? I hope. 
> 
> Meggory and Skyy, as always, blessings be upon your mighty Houses. Thank you to the discord chat who put up with me whining.


	7. Afterimage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Meanwhile in the City..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue, of sorts, for this part, and an introduction of new faces who are here to stay.  
> Well, some of them, at any rate. One of them doesn't really _do_ faces.

_[30.11.5199 – 1.12.5199]_

 

Over his last seven years in office, Finis Valorum had picked up a few skills that he never would have thought he might need. The more obscure skills included hot-wiring jammed or code-locked doors and Judicial’s ‘secure’ speeders, for a quick escape from an explosive situation. The most obviously useful had been the ability to get around Coruscant without notice—ducking crowds, Judicial patrols, and security cams. His teacher had been punctilious to a fault, and at the time, Finis had been inclined to call it overkill. But his instructor was also one of the highest ranked officers of Coruscant Security Forces, themselves a figure who preferred to remain entirely unnoticed, and they’d profoundly disagreed. 

Since then, Finis had reconsidered. He’d been using those tricks since the start of his second term to avoid reporters and holocams. The subterfuge had also saved his life more than once: two years ago Coruscant had seen the rise of an Underlevel-based terrorist group, The Flail, whose manifesto had called for the elimination of the “grossly ineffective and corrupt” Chancellor. Valorum had taken their attempts to do so in stride, more or less, because there hadn’t been much else to do about it. He’d brushed off the accusations as completely ridiculous. Privately, he was far less successful in dismissing the thought that many of his efforts did seem… ineffective. 

Now, of course, he’d been voted out of office, and was under investigation by the Appropriations Committee—on charges of corruption. In a night, he’d been demoted from Chancellor of the Republic to disgraced ex-politician on the street. 

But for that, he might even have taken his dismissal in good humour. As the matter stood, he was surprised that his CSF contact wanted to see him at all. Valorum, plodding along through the thick, humid air, somewhat fatalistically wondered what fresh hell he was in for. 

Of course, as he was no longer Chancellor, there would be no meeting the Director in his office, nor even in a local diner or teashop. The location had been sent to his secure comm an hour ago, a jumble of digits and letters that used old Coruscanti zoning conventions—another bit of obscure trivia he’d inadvertently learned while in office. Finis felt a near-constant prickling presence over his right shoulder, where his two shadows were tailing him—his security detail, out of sight but almost never far enough to be out of mind. They were also, the Director had assured him, two of CSF’s finest, though Valorum was never entirely certain that there were only two, or that they were the same pair. 

The location of this particular safehouse was an old, quiet residential corner tucked away in the business district. There was a practical element to it: last-generation surveillance systems meant that this part of the business sector—Zone 6—was effectively a dead zone. No one ever seemed bothered by it; Zone 6 was once full of old money, now abandoned by many of its original aristocratic families in favour of posh nests of a more modern construction, but it still held a certain charm. 

The alleyway opened onto a plaza with a rare view of a small square of sky directly above it. Rain-wet walls and pavement gleamed like oil slick in the glow of dim, flickering light fixtures. Where they worked, the lamps cast a bleak sort of green-orange wash that made just about any species look unhealthy. The passageways struck that fine balance of enough light to dissuade a pickpocket and not enough to know when one passed a neighbour without really peering into their hood.  

The passage was also littered with discreetly-placed signal jammers, and specially paired immune recording devices. Fiendishly clever things, though they made his teeth fairly hum with the feeling of being observed. Valorum had never actually seen them, save as a Sienar Systems concept that had never made it into production; on paper, he’d recognised them as the product of one of CSF’s side-projects he never wanted to know about. CSF had long since found ways to supplement Appropriations funding, and he knew better than to ask where the money came from. Plausible deniability, and all that. 

The unassuming Mid-level apartment hid twenty different security measures in the shadowed entry-hall alone. Even locals tended to avoid the place, from the look of things. With five apartments to a floor, Valorum spared a thought to wonder who else lived on this level. Some of CSF’s higher-ranking criminal contacts, perhaps? Valorum found it an amusing thing to imagine—an unassuming old lady with a small dog, the kingpin of some crime syndicate. 

Coruscant’s Underlevel crowd had kept much to itself in the last few years—incidents with the Flail notwithstanding. Finis tried not to worry too much about the fact that CSF was on ‘friendly’ terms with the Black Sun syndicate, and turned a blind eye to the backroom casinos and various smuggling operations. Those operations hadn’t caused a stir in the Senate district or in the wealthier upper levels. As far as Finis could tell, the same smuggling activities fueled the current peaceful balance of the Underlevels—the “Downstairs”, as the Director referred to it. 

Ever since this particular Director’s appointment, CSF had—apparently—come to a stable arrangement with the Coruscanti nightlife. There were no turf wars, and there hadn’t been a ‘drug epidemic’ in over a decade. There were hard limits at sentient-trafficking and the smuggling and poaching of rare species, and certain drugs were heavily controlled. Aside from that, Valorum might have called the agreement almost friendly. 

Case in point: the signal jammers, cameras, bugs, and the furnished apartment all looked to be an earnest sign of that friendship. Despite the damp outside world, the safehouse itself was warm, dry, with air quality and furnishings fit for a flat in the  _ 500 Republica— _ though with less ostentatious flair. Probably a  _ 500 Republica _ apartment of about five renovations ago, Valorum mused with a faint smile. The floor was pale synth material that mimicked the look of wood, and yet he could feel warmth radiating from it through the soles of his shoes. The carpet runner was thick and inviting, and the furniture, if not very new, had the look of sheer comfort. 

The budget set aside for CSF by Appropriations wasn’t nearly enough for this. Valorum suddenly wished he’d gotten the chance to ask how the Director had done it—gotten the money for all this, squeezed it out of some Syndicate or other. Once, he’d planned to ask on his way out of office. Now it seemed one of those things he was destined never to know, like what black hole Appropriations had pulled their accusations from, or how the past year had been crammed so full of explosive crises that he’d all but given up sleep the last few months of his term. 

Or why a high-ranking Security officer, a member of CSF’s Directorate, had called a meeting with him now, when he was no longer an official figure of any sort. That mystery, at least, he could hope to see resolved. 

He knew the drill well enough by now: all windows shuttered with blackout covers; meetings in a room with no external or party walls, or at least as few of them as possible; lighting always arranged for one corner to be completely in the dark—that was where the Director sat. The room and the lights were always set up in such a way that he could sit no more than a half-meter from their chair and never see a hint of his host. He liked that set-up. A half-meter away, he could almost hear them breathing, hear the brush and rustle of cloth that gave away more than the Director did with words alone. 

He was also mostly conscious of the fact that the tics and mannerisms were something the Director  _ could _ control, and purposely did not, for his benefit. 

Valorum sighed and settled into a chair that proceeded to consume him. The table at his elbow held a tumbler and a crystal decanter filled with, he already knew, his favourite rum. “Expecting me?” he asked, pouring himself out a glass. If the Director had deemed the presence of the rum necessary, this wasn’t going to be the most pleasant of conversations. 

“Well, you’re officially a free man, but I suppose you’ll want to shake the corruption charges.” 

Valorum couldn’t hold back a smile at the sound of the familiar mechanical voice. The vox produced a near-toneless string of words, but he could always catch a lilt of amusement or a particularly dry delivery. “You’re going to insist on this whole charade, too, I suppose. Sure you don’t want to turn that off? Sounds a little rusty.” 

“Oh, I thought I was imagining that. Here, hold on—”

There was the sound of some kind of scraping and fumbling across from him in the darkened corner of the room, and then something clicked sharply as his host cleared their throat—though, the vox delivered that in a particularly grating way. He winced, hiding the expression behind well-cut crystal. 

“Sorry about that. I let R&D play around with it a little last week. They promised to extend the battery life. I think they tried to blow it up instead.”

Valorum relaxed, fractionally, and allowed himself a crooked shadow of a smile. “Well. Now you sound like you again.” 

He hadn’t doubted their identity. In spite of the subterfuge, there were quite a few components to the Director’s persona that Finis could always recognise with his eyes closed and his hands tied behind his back. That vox was only one of them. 

“Very funny. But, yes, to answer your question: I am keeping this charade up until I retire, and given your current predicament, I doubt that will be soon.” 

Valorum frowned at the shadowed bulk. “What predicament?” 

“Well, first of all, we’ve taken care of the better part of the Flail, but the pesky bastards spread their manifesto—don’t be surprised if someone else takes up the cry.”

“And as I’m no longer Chancellor, I suppose that makes me an easier target,” he sighed. 

“Finis, if you think I’m letting you go without a guard, you’ve lost it, my friend.” 

Oh, that was dry as Jedha. “You can justify setting aside guards for a retired public servant with a bad name?” he asked, mildly surprised. 

There was a clearly amused tilt of the head from the shadowed figure. “I’m a member of the Directorate of Coruscant Security Forces, and I oversee the Organised Crime Division. Do you really think I answer to some Senate subcommittee for budget oversight?” 

“Well apparently everyone does these days,” he retorted, smiling. To the Director’s credit, Finis finally found  _ some _ humour in the situation—for the first time in days. 

“Yes, speaking of feckless subcommittees: Internal Activities can’t pin down where you allegedly siphoned the money from, which is amusing in and of itself.” 

That really only raised more questions—like what evidence they’d charged him on in the first place. Finis hummed, and avoided that topic. The Director would find out in time. If he knew anything about them, they wouldn’t stop at proving his innocence. “What did CSF find?”

The mass of shadows managed to look instantly business-like. “Dorvalla. The shipment of aurodium ingots that went missing—the transaction was equivalent to value the Trade Federation declared in losses, paid in full to the Valorum Shipping and Transport Company. Friends of yours? 

Valorum stiffened. “Family. Distant relations.” 

House Valorum of Lytton Sector was a couple generations and one timeless feud removed from Eriadu, which made it, technically, not a lie. House Valorum of Eriadu had supported Finis in his run for Chancellor, however—mostly to spite the Tarkins. Half-forgotten family feuds took second place when it came to a power struggle for Eriadu. 

“Were you then, or are you presently in contact with them?” 

For the political glad-handing alone, he’d had to meet with the Chief Executive of Valorum Shipping and Transport and his family. Finis had never really had time to work out an official reconciliation with them—but they were, at the least, civil. “Erithea’s daughter was born earlier that year.”

“Congratulations,” the Director said kindly, “for all I’m two years late.”

Finis shook his head. “As if you didn’t know.”

“There’s a fine line between being polite and being terrifying for us intelligence officers.” 

Finis had the impression that the Director was trying not to laugh. 

“Well, it does look a bit damning, I’ll grant them that,” he admitted with a suppressed sigh. 

“Internal Activities is still not sure who sold the aurodium and how, or what happened to that money. All we know is that this particular transaction went through the Bank of Aargau into the company accounts.”

Valorum frowned. “I don’t suppose it would help to say that I do not have an account with the Bank of Aargau?”

“Of course you don’t,” the Director agreed. “Not after their security breach five years ago. We were able to submit documentation to the overseeing judge to corroborate that we have no record of such an account.” 

“You mean, all your surveillance of me.” 

Finis had come to accept that a lack of privacy in his role as Chancellor was a foregone conclusion, but sometimes the detailed surveillance records still gave him pause. “The absence of any such record does not prove that some hypothetical bank account of mine does not exist, but rather that you have no trace of it.”

The Director tilted their head forward in a slight bow. “We’re still trying to get the Bank of Aargau to tell us whose accounts the money was transferred from, and since that incident they haven’t been entirely willing to share information of any kind. All we really need is the date the account was created, and the location of its owner at the time. As you can see, the situation isn’t hopeless. We’re very close to killing this. I have no doubt you’ll be cleared of charges, Finis.” 

He smiled, wry and tired. “I appreciate your confidence in me, Director. It’s quite refreshing to hear a presumption of innocence.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, your innocence is all but guaranteed by your character. It’s quite refreshing, by the way, to work with a politician who isn’t prone to fraud and shady dealings. No—it’s my skill I have confidence in.” 

Finis snorted. He was exhausted, as if the relief of seeing his name cleared had suddenly made him aware of all the weight that the last year had piled on his back. “Thank you, my friend. I’m beginning to appreciate my freedom. Can’t say I’m particularly pleased with the manner in which it was achieved, but when you put it that way the early retirement seems almost worth it.”

The Director was very silent at that. 

“No,” he said immediately. “Absolutely not.” 

“I haven’t asked anything of you, yet,” the mechanical voice pointed out, with just enough lilt to betray a hint of amusement. 

“So you  _ are _ going to.” 

“You are under absolutely no obligation to accept,” they assured him. But the tone quickly turned sober and deliberate. “I am… concerned with the turn of events that led to your—early retirement. The matter of the aurodium shipment should have been resolved a year ago, yet it would appear that the courts of Eriadu have held the case back. I am almost certain the investigation has been stonewalled by Governor Tarkin—petty vengeance, perhaps? Palpatine is, moreover, a surprising candidate for Chancellor. He had no real political clout in the Senate.” 

“Garnered sympathy from the electorate,” Valorum suggested, but couldn’t quite make the words as dismissive as he would have liked. 

The Director’s reaction to that was entirely clear, even if Finis had no idea which particular derisive noise the vox was trying to translate. 

“All right, barely a joke and done in poor taste,” he conceded. “Amidala was the voice of the petition—” 

“—and the Vote of No Confidence.” 

“A bit rash, but one can understand her frustration.” 

The heavy silence from the Director’s seat suggested otherwise, but Finis didn’t let that stop him. “I rather doubt anyone thought that they could buy or influence Palpatine.” 

The Director tilted their head again. “How so?” 

“Only that he offers to mentor every single aide and Junior Senator who looks fresh-faced enough to accept.” Finis smiled tightly. “Maybe one could argue that ‘he who cannot do will teach’, but I don’t think so. I think he was learning the lay of the land, subtly, and watching trends for years. As I recall, he’s been a Senator for over twenty years, now.”

The Director nodded. “That would appear to be in agreement with most of our observations. On a more urgent note—and I’ll try to leave the cynicism out of this—the Trade Federation has been far too heavy-handed of late, and Palpatine has been a complete pest, as far as they are concerned. Didn’t they explicitly state that the blockade of his homeworld was a direct consequence of that new tax he pushed through?”

“You’re suggesting that if the Trade Federation truly viewed him as a threat, he would not have been elected.” Finis frowned. “Blackmail, d’you think?” 

“I don’t know yet.” There was a soft shuffling noise—a shrug. “I’m sure we’ll find out, eventually. If there’s anything  _ to _ find, of that nature, we always do. But if it’s not blackmail, or obvious insider trading—that is much more difficult to find.

“But to return to the subject at hand: your retirement. If you were to, perhaps, retreat to the privacy of your apartments under the guise of ‘writing a memoir’—” 

Finis snorted gracelessly. 

“—and limit your public appearances to small functions, mostly private gatherings, I’m sure you would still be welcomed in certain circles. Not political, not at first; some of the corporate gatherings, though, might be willing to issue invitations. You’ve certainly helped some of them.” 

“Possibly—but why?” 

The Director, without facial expression and with great economy of movement, managed to exude the impression of solemnity. “I cannot tell the direction of the wind, Finis. I find it concerning that no one managed to predict Chancellor Palpatine of Naboo. Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, this is merely a blip; maybe he will make quite a good Chancellor, we shall have to see. He certainly seems capable. But I feel I no longer know where the Republic is headed, and this is a matter of great concern to me.” 

“And you feel that I am in a position to be able to tell you which way the wind is blowing?” 

“If—and  _ only _ if—you are willing. You may refuse at any time.” 

He huffed, and shot the Director a wry half-smile. “I suppose I’m with you to the very end.”

“Always did appreciate your boundless enthusiasm,” the Director retorted. They rose—hooded and wrapped in a dark cloak as usual. “Take some time to think about it. You know the drill, leave at least twenty minutes after me, your team will be waiting outside a few meters down the hall.” 

Belatedly, it occurred to Finis that he had one more question the Director might answer, but he hesitated to ask it. 

“Yes?” 

“I know this isn’t strictly your area,” he began, somewhat reluctantly. 

It was a tricky minefield to negotiate, he thought. He was no longer Chancellor and wasn’t privy to any information CSF may or may not have; if the Coruscant Security Forces had information from outside the city, they’d hardly appreciate him asking. Yet Finis had acted without the Senate’s approval in asking the Jedi to look into the situation on Naboo. His  _ personal _ decision had endangered the life of his friend, and Finis needed to know of his fate. 

“I’ll do my best to find out, to set your mind at ease,” the Director said. 

Finis gave them a quizzical look. 

“You’d only hesitate to ask me about something personal, Finis,” they clarified. “I’m not so bad at guesswork.”

Well, that was fair. “I wanted to ask you about Naboo. There is no mention of Jedi in any of the reports.” 

“They were only there as Queen Amidala’s bodyguards, hardly as political figures,” the Director pointed out, “but there should have been at least a footnote.” 

That was definitely a note of irritation in the Director’s altered voice. Finis raised a curious eyebrow. 

“You know I keep track of your meetings. We’ve been watching the Trade Federation and the Viceroy as it is, but I thought it prudent to shadow the Jedi to Naboo. The loss of Captain Makador was… it was a blow. She was a sterling operative.” 

_ You have people everywhere, _ Finis thought in amazement.  _ Probably a Neimoidian, too, keeping an eye on the Viceroy. _

“Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn was gravely injured in the Battle of Naboo. I understand the Jedi have made some progress on an experimental treatment, which has greatly improved his prognosis. His apprentice, young Padawan Kenobi, has earned the dubious distinction of becoming the Order’s most recent case of psychic exhaustion, which I understand are generally quite few.” 

Finis winced. “And by ‘greatly improved his prognosis’ you mean…?” 

Here, for some reason, the Director hesitated. “He’ll be transferred to the Jedi Healers’ here on Coruscant. The ship was scheduled to depart at six hundred hours, Theed Time. The Jedi are expected to arrive early on the fourth. You might be able to pay Master Jinn a visit. I… would like to give you a more detailed response, Finis, but—well, we’re not supposed to be able to read messages with Jedi encryption.” 

“Of course not. Would you like me to drop them a hint?” 

“If it’s not too much trouble. Is there anything else?” 

“No. Thank you,” he added, glancing up at the Director. “You didn’t have to.”

There was that faint trace of a shrug, and the tilt of the head. “My pleasure.”

The Director’s slightly uneven tread moved across the room to the door.  _ Been wearing that leg brace too long, _ Valorum thought absently. Any more than sixteen hours, and the limp became audible—he’d figured that out during the Yinchorr disaster, when the Director had shadowed him personally. 

The steps paused at the door. 

“You’ll still be getting a team to tail you if you decide not to continue working with me, by the way, so don’t think you’ll be able to worm your way out of that one.” 

For the first time, a genuine smile turned up the corner of his mouth. “Pessimist,” he muttered. 

Predictably, “Three assassination attempts!” carried back to him from all the way down the hall. 

How reassuring to know that some things never did change. 

 

* * *

 

 

His head was pounding, and his mouth was desert-dry, but he was lying on something soft. 

Muzzily, he tried to make sense of all this. ‘Soft’ was definitely alien, but strangely it didn’t seem as out of place as consciousness. 

He remembered snatches of what came before the dark; there was a fight… and pain… and Typhon, that bastard, had kicked him—he was almost certain there had been a concealed blade somewhere in that boot, probably tipped or treated with some kind of poison. 

It was Typhon’s sort of weapon, poison. Sidious, too, was inordinately fond of it. He hated the stuff; he’d been on the receiving end enough to have worked up a certain amount tolerance to it, but that didn’t colour his opinion of it nearly as much as the fact that it was an underhanded way to kill. Efficient, good for when you needed to be in two places at once, but not entirely reliable, either. Sidious and Typhon were fond of being in two places at once. 

He felt as though someone had rubbed a handful of sand into his eyes. Belatedly, the smell came to him—medically sterile—and the sound of quiet life-signs monitors. It occurred to him that unconscious and under a knife in a medical facility anywhere near Sidious was as good as dead, and his eyes flew open. 

“He’s not here,” a horribly familiar voice informed him neutrally. 

Maul slowly turned his head in its direction. 

Typhon was watching him, expressionless. He looked a bit worse for wear, Maul noticed, and felt a thread of satisfaction at that. Sidious could not have been pleased when Typhon returned from Naboo with a body in tow, even if Maul had somehow survived—the Jedi… 

Again, that feeling of complete, uprooting disbelief overcame him. How could he  _ possibly _ have survived that? The only ‘friend’ he’d had on Naboo was Typhon, and Typhon was his direct competition—it would be easier to remove Maul from the equation than be forced to compete with him, always in second place as far as their Master was concerned. 

But why would Typhon have bothered…? 

“Why?” It came out in an awful rasp. 

Typhon shrugged. “You said it yourself. Our Master wants results; fighting only serves to tire us both, and  _ he _ can do that well enough on his own. Imagine if he only had to tire one of us.” 

Black humour swelled in him. “Don’t… want to be… his only… plaything?” Typhon would be lucky to last an hour under Sidious’s— _ undivided _ —attention, Maul thought.

Typhon’s answering grin had too many teeth and too little warmth to it. “Now you’ve got it. Sorry about the mess,” he added, rising to—apparently—check the IV line. “I just needed to be first, you see.” 

To prove himself worthy of being their Master’s Apprentice. 

“Disrupted… mission,” Maul tried. It was like swimming through molasses. He wanted to take his arm back from Typhon’s grasp, but there was very little he could do, as it turned out. 

“Don’t move,” Typhon admonished, not quite sharply. “Yes, the Naboo held their own, and the Jedi survived. I suppose you could call it a failure all around. But that’s the difference between you and me,” he said, and this time his smile was almost real, for all it held a permanent edge of malice. “I’m an optimist.” 

Optimist. “Mad, suicidal bastard” far better fit the bill. 

Maul let his eyes slip shut again.  _ Let the crazy bastard burn himself, like I give a damn. _

And maybe that was better, that Sidious should have most of his focus on Typhon. Maul didn’t dare hope it would be  _ easier, _ no, but somewhere deep down under layers and layers of shielding, the calculation was registered and filed away as a possibility. At any rate, while Typhon wanted him alive, he could rest, and not worry about Acolytes cutting his throat while he slept. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for Part I. Decompression, folks! Part II will be coming along eventually. Once I've had some strong words with it.  
> Possibly in an alley.

**Author's Note:**

> This work owes its existence in large part to meggory and jessebee. Thank you for the betareads, nudges, and ideas :)
> 
> Written for aidava, flamethrower, and poplitealqueen 
> 
> Encouraged by kettish, shaetiann, and so many more fantastic evil minds.


End file.
